Counterattacks on angels and humans
by Antoniusan
Summary: As Shinji and Rei team up for the seventh angel, they grow closer and closer. Now, at the End of Mankind in the Third Impact, what will happen to the pilot trio?
1. Teaming up

First Chapter

This fanfic is going to start at episode 09 of the anime and the difference is that we have Shinji teaming up with Rei instead of Asuka. The story is identical (as good as I can write) until after Asuka shouts "No, I can't stand this anymore!". After that, my version begins. Some more identical parts may come if I feel like it. The story will soon take an AU turn because I hate the ending of the real anime, and I don't understand anything of it. I will also add some humour, like making Gendo slightly "mad" or at least quite weird. Enjoy the reading and if anyone has any complains, please review.

"…" indicates speech

'…' indicates thoughts, dream dialogue, gestures and electronically voices or sounds.

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

"It's so obvious! I can't adjust 'down' to Shinji's level! It was impossible in the first place!"

Misato cocked her head slightly.

"Then you're giving up?" Asuka put her hands on her hips and smiled triumphantly.

"There's no one else, right?" Misato smiled and cocked her head the other way, towards Rei.

"Rei."

"Hai."

"Give it a try."

"Okay." Rei put her papers she had been reading down and stood up. Asuka stepped aside as Rei took her place on the mat and put the headphones over her ears. As the music began, Shinji and Rei moved in perfect unison and scored perfectly on the dancing game they used to practice in Misato's apartment. Asuka could only gasp as Rei and Shinji picked up score after score that Asuka and Shinji could not have dreamed of. It was too much for Asuka after a while and she just stared at Misato as the captain simply stated the obvious.

"Maybe it would be better to change the plan, and have Shinji team up with Rei." This was the drop that made the beaker flow and Asuka yelled and stormed out of the room.

"No, I can't stand this anymore!"

Shinji and Rei finished the round and looked at the scoreboards. They both read 100. They smiled and nodded at each other.

"Okay… then I'll inform HQ and we will have the change official." With this, Misato stood up and walked towards the front door. She stopped at the step and shouted back inside.

"Shinji! Make sure that you two practice now! And go talk to Asuka; she'll need to know that we are re-locating her!" Shinji was to say the least startled by the last bit.

"Re-locating? But Misato-san…" But Misato had already left and slammed the door shut after her. To Shinji, it sounded like a gunshot aimed at him.

"Well… we'd better leave then… bye!" Touji led the other to guests out the door smiling sheepishly at Shinji and Rei. First of all, Touji did not realize that the door was closed and pushed the other two into it. A few muffled curses could be heard along with the question;

"Why did you two close the door? That's just stupid." They managed to get the door open and their argument could be heard a far way, even with the door closed. The only sounds now that could be heard were Asuka's sobbing.

* * *

"Asuka-san… It's me, Shinji. Can I come in?" An object shattered against the wall, mere inches from Shinji's face. After that it went pretty much downhill.

"Re-location! Baka!" A slap sounded through the apartment and Rei sighed again where she sat on the sofa, hands balled up in her lap. A door opened and Misato stumbled inside, just in time to avoid the door to ricochet back at her. It locked with a loud click. Apparently, Misato had been out for a while after informing HQ about the change of plans.

* * *

Gendo had smiled, put the tips of his fingers together and approved.

"Excellent, another part of my plan falls into place…" He chuckled under his breath for quite a while before dismissing Misato. That scene had freaked her out quite a bit, and when she's freaked out, Misato needs a drink.

* * *

Another door could be heard being opened and closed. Shinji walked into the room with a remarkably big handprint over the half of his face.

"Hi, Misato-san… She didn't like it." Misato giggled and eyed his face.

"I can see that." Shinji slumped down on the sofa, a bit closer to Rei that he had intended, but they didn't care; well, not for now at least.

"It feels kind of sad that she's going to… hang on. Where is she going to live?"

Misato swallowed and took a deep breath and carefully, carefully let it loose.

"She's going to stay in Rei's old apartment." Shinji and Rei simultaneously jumped and looked at her.

"What!"

"What!" Shinji looked at Rei who looked back.

"But where is she supposed to stay?"

"But where am I supposed to stay?" Misato sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if she was developing a headache.

"Well…eh…she's gonna stay…eh…" Shinji did not like this hesitation.

"…here…" There it was; the face faulting factor. As if to prove that they synched all day, Shinji and Rei both face faulted simultaneously.

"What!"

"What!" Misato looked at them with a raised eyebrow; well, at Rei with a raised eyebrow. It was nothing like her to be so forward, especially not against a superior, even when both of them are out of service.

'This is something unexpected for the guys at HQ.'

"Misato-san…"

'I wonder what the commander will think of this…'

"Misato-san?"

'Maybe it's Shinji that have brought up this side of Rei…

"Misato-san."

'I wonder if it's something going on between the two of them…'

"Misato-san!" Misato was literally pushed off her train of thoughts and looked at the two teens on the couch, Shinji a bit red in the face from shouting. Of course, this was unknown to Misato.

'He's blushing, what if I'm right…I wonder what the commander will think of this…'

"Misato-san! Hello!" Shinji waved a hand in front of her face to catch her attention.

"Yes? Oh, sorry, Shinji-kun. What is it?" Shinji sighed and said it once again.

"If that's the case, maybe we should go to Rei's old place and pick up her stuff." Rei nodded and started walking towards the door. Shinji hurried after her and waved at Misato and slammed the door shut after them. Misato sighed and grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator. Then she smiled mischievously.

'Oh, guess if I'll tease the two of them now I might get some fun info…but will I tell the commander if they DO have a relationship? Ah, screw the HQ for now, young love as its best grows even in this ruined city, love always finds a way to develop, it overcomes classes, sexes, geographical or religious or racial differences…I wonder what's in this beer, it makes me feel weird…'

* * *

"I guess that's it then…" Shinji stood in the small apartment of Rei's, well, in the bedroom that made up the biggest part of the apartment. He could not help but to feel sorry for the girl who had to live here, it was dirty, small and she had blood-stained bandages everywhere. Rei emerged from ht kitchen where she had picked up the rest of her clothes and the few books she had. Shinji decided not to ask why she didn't clean or do the laundry or pick up her books at least.

"Shall we leave then?" Rei asked and looked at Shinji who had a brown box in his arms with some of Rei's clothes. He nodded and smiled heart-warmingly at her. This shocked her a little.

'No one has ever smiled at me like that…it's…true, from the heart…' And it made her forget the last thing she should have picked up. They walked out the front door side by side with Shinji. And a pair of broken, yellow-brownish glasses lay on a drawer, gleaming in the weak rays of light getting in through the dusty window, somehow sad, but Rei was free from the glasses now, the next step was to get free from the former bearer of these glasses. Ikari Gendo. The commander of NERV.

* * *

"We're home!" The shout almost echoed throughout the apartment. Apparently, Misato and Asuka had already prepared the moving of Asuka and were both on their way to move Asuka in. Shinji and Rei carefully put the boxes down on the table and decided on training for a while until Misato, and maybe Asuka, got home. The music soon played through the speakers and headphones and the teens moved in perfect unison throughout the whole program. They raised and raised the difficulty level, but kept up with each other. If they made a mistake, both made it at the same time.

Misato soon came in through the door, luckily for Shinji, without Asuka. Misato stopped at the door and watched the almost creepy synchronisation between Shinji and Rei. She sighed as hey both made the same mistake and ended up almost breaking the same leg. The sigh was heavy enough for them to hear, and they stopped. Misato took off her jacket and hung it over the back of her chair and took out a beer. She downed it and screamed happily after a few seconds. Shinji was used to it, but Rei took it a bit harder. She jumped and looked around wild-eyed, looking for the source of the sound. Shinji laughed and pointed towards the kitchen. Rei calmed down after getting it confirmed that it wasn't some sort of angel.

* * *

"So…you don't go out shopping that much, right?" Misato only got a nod as a confirmation. A sweatdrop formed at the back of her head; apparently it was only Shinji who could get a more specific or longer answer from Rei. They all sat down at the dining table and thought of the two boxes that held Rei's luggage. Rei had moved into Asuka's room, it was quickly done, the clothes was put in the drawer and cupboard and her book in the bookshelf. Shinji looked at Rei with confusion in his eyes. How on earth the girl could manage with that little clothes and not doing the laundry was a mystery far greater and far more confusing than the mystery of the angels. Misato smiled.

"We'll take care of that in a short while. Okay?" Rei simply nodded in approval. Misato was beginning to get tired of the girl's silence or strictness against her. But now, Misato was going to have fun instead.

"So…are you two are getting along well?" Shinji looked at Misato, he smiled.

"Well…I can't speak for her, but I think I'll get along better with Rei than I did with Asuka-san." Misato raised an eyebrow over her newly-opened can of beer.

"So…you're Rei with her now, eh?" She said it in that mocking tone that pointed to something either sexual or romantic. Shinji, however, did nothing more than ignoring it.

"Rei asked me to when we were practising earlier, right, Rei?" Rei nodded at him and then added;

"That's right Ika…Shinji." She still seemed to have some trouble saying his name in that friendly manner, but Shinji had insisted on that they should address each other as equal as possible. Misato raised the eyebrow even further and emptied the bottle; she simply went for another one. A series of random crashing and bashing was heard for no apparent reason from the refrigerator; it did not contain much more than a lot of beer and some fast-food, so the noises were another mystery.

"You two want to taste some?" Misato asked without pulling her head out of the refrigerator. Shinji sighed inaudible and signed for Rei not to fall for the trick. They both declined at the same time, which made Misato jump and bang her head in the refrigerator shelf over her. She sighed and withdrew her head.

"Alright, whose time to cook is it?" Shinji got up from his chair and walked over to the chore schedule on the wall. He sighed and walked over to the refrigerator.

"I guess it's my turn to cook today." He started taking out food and starting to cook the food. Then he stopped and thought of something.

"Rei?" Rei looked at him.

"What?"

"Is it okay for you to take over Asuka's chores on the schedule? It's not that very much."

"Okay. I shall give it a try." Shinji smiled and continued cooking.

* * *

After another half an hour the food was finished and set up on the table. Rei took a testing bite and nodded approvingly. The following hour was quiet with a few exceptions when someone asked about anything or admired the food. The latter were Rei more than Misato and this drew some blushing from Shinji's side, and this drew giggles from both Misato and Rei. At first, Misato and Shinji were surprised, not to say shocked that Rei actually had giggled.

* * *

After the dinner, they decided that Shinji and Rei should do some more practicing and Misato started on doing the dishes. And as usual, Shinji and Rei moved in perfect unison.

'Alright, that is scary.' Misato thought while looking at their 100 performance.

* * *

This continued for a couple of weeks and Shinji and Rei did not miss a single score on the training game without the other one doing it as well.

* * *

They all woke up. They all ate breakfast which they did in turns every three days. They all worked, Shinji and Rei on the synchronization tests and Misato did the, according to her, hell spawn paperwork. They all ate dinner home in the evening and after a few hours of homework, training, TV-watching or jogging they all went to sleep and the routine looped.

* * *

The cooking schedules for them all looked something like this:

Monday: Shinji

Tuesday: Rei

Wednesday: Misato

Thursday: Shinji

Friday: Rei

Saturday: Misato

Sunday: Shinji

Monday: Rei

Tuesday: Misato

Wednesday: Shinji

Thursday: Rei

Friday: Misato

Saturday: Shinji

Sunday: Rei

Monday: Misato

Tuesday: Shinji

Wednesday: Rei

Thursday: Misato

Friday: Shinji

Saturday: Rei

Sunday: Misato

* * *

This day had flown by as any other day and after the homework and chores they both had decided on getting some fresh air and exercise.

* * *

A few hours later, Shinji and Rei were exhausted from the jogging tour they had went on and sat on a park bench, leaning against each other for support, both panting heavily. The park bench was old and in some places the wood had been broken off or simply rotten away. The tree stood tall and mighty over their heads and shadowed the path they had been jogging. Suddenly, Rei sat up and looked at Shinji, who for a second had almost fallen off the bench as the supportive back of Rei had disappeared.

"What is it?" Shinji asked a bit drowsy, he had almost fallen asleep against the for him embarrassingly comfortable back. Rei looked deep into his brown eyes, her red eyes filling his vision.

"Why is captain Katsuragi asking all those weird questions about us? It seems as if she is suspecting a relationship of some kind forming between the two of us." Shinji pondered about this for a moment and then smiled sheepishly at her.

"She's just teasing us, mostly me, but still. It's just teasing. I shouldn't care too much about it if I were you." Rei looked even more focused at him. And was this disappointment in her eyes?

"So she doesn't really think there is a relationship forming between us then?" Shinji sweatdropped.

"I don't really know, she might just be teasing, but I don't know, maybe she is, I don't really…" Shinji started stuttering and blabbering for a few minutes until he heard Rei scream and he got hit in the back of his head with a blunt object. One of the broken off pieces of wood from the park bench. He passed out and rolled off the bench.


	2. Thugs and Angels

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

The thug trio had carried Rei to an abandoned subway station. The walls were a sickly grey with old paint visible in the corners; the rest was covered in graffiti. An old train-wreck lay on the rail like a heap of rusty rubble and slowly decayed among the other garbage that were laying in piles in and around the train skeleton. The thugs stood around Rei who lay on the floor in the middle. The thugs had beaten her quite badly already.

"Come on, give the bag to us and you won't get hurt again!" Rei fought to stand up, tears streaking her slightly bruised face. She was desperately clinging to her purse. The money was nothing, they could have it, they could even have the necklace in silver in there, the one with the beautiful silver and gold butterfly, but the one thing they couldn't have was the picture.

'The picture shall never be theirs!'

"Very well then…" the trio's leader said, pulling his fist back to give a powerful blow to her face. But before the blow fell, a body crashed into the thug's and sent him crashing into the wall. The thug leader tried to stand up again but was floored by a kick in the face, breaking his nose. Shinji turned around, and the sight was one that could make the devil run for pope and succeed if Shinji said so. In short, he was pissed. His face and hair was damp with sweat and a trail of dried blood in the back of the head, but the eyes, those eyes. They seemed to be burning with anger, hugging the corner to madness. The two other thugs reeled back a step at this sight. Shinji took a step closer to them and actually growled, no, snarled at them. This did break their frozen stance a bit and they decided to aid their unconscious leader. They pulled out their knifes. This seemed to be start shot for Shinji who dashed forward, hitting one of them in the guts with his right fist. As the thug doubled over, Shinji's knee hit him on the nose, sending his face up to meet Shinji's left fist. The thug was down. Two down, one more to go. The thug stabbed at Shinji, who simply sidestepped it and kicked the thug on his knee, sending him on one knee to the floor. Shinji then grabbed his long hair in his left hand and whispered dangerously low in the thug's ear;

"If you wake up, scram, and tell everyone of your little thug friends that you all should stay the hell away from Ayanami Rei." After that, he drove his right fist into the thugs' guts and with the momentum of the thug doubling over; he drove the thugs face into the floor with a sickening crack from his nose as the nose bridge snapped. Shinji lifted the thugs head up and slammed it into the floor two more times before he let the thug go and watched with disgust as he toppled over and lay unconscious on the floor next to his comrades.

"Are you alright?" Shinji whispered in Rei's ear, the animal-like instincts gone like they never were there in the first place. Rei sobbed and looked at the unconscious bodies on the floor. She looked up into Shinji's concerned face and nodded, wincing slightly from the pain in her neck.

"You saved me…I knew you would come looking for me… I'm so sorry…" Shinji hushed her and put a finger on her lips and lifted her up in his strong arms, cradling her, protecting her. She snuggled up into his chest, grabbing some of his shirt in her hands and cried on his shoulder. Shinji started walking home with Rei still in his arms.

* * *

"Oh, Kami-sama! What happened?" Misato screamed as Shinji opened the door with his left foot. It really was a horrific picture. Shinji, bloody mess of a hair, sweaty and clothes torn in a few places, one shoe lost somewhere. Rei cradled in his arms, face bruised and blood smeared over her left side of the face, her jogging suit was torn and muddy and her lovely blue hair was smeared with mud and grease. Shinji shook his head to show that he should explain it later. He carried the now sleeping Rei to the couch and put her down very carefully, making sure that she didn't lie in an uncomfortable position. Misato had never seen him so concerned before. She sat down on a chair and watched him as he ran to the kitchen and ran back with some bandages, scissors, painkillers, antiseptics and pillows. Shinji then put the pillows under Rei's head and noticed that he had forgotten something. He ran out in the kitchen again and came back with a bowl of hot water and some towels. He wet the towels and put some antiseptics on them and started cleaning Rei's bruises with them.

* * *

When he was done cleaning her face, he had had to change the water three times and go get new towels two times. He got more and more relaxed as Rei's breathing became less and less shallow and pained. He put on some of the bandages and tied them so that they shouldn't fall off. He then carried the things out in the kitchen and only left the bowl of hot water and some damp towels to put on Rei's forehead. When Shinji sat down on a chair beside the couch Misato noticed the bruise.

"Shinji, you're hurt." Shinji blinked and touched the back of his head. He felt the uncomfortably stiff puddle of blood in his hair and sighed.

"It's nothing Misato-san. Let me take care of Rei for now, okay?" Misato sighed and pulled him away under heavy protests.

"Let go of me, I need to look after Rei!" Misato pressed him down on a chair in the kitchen and started pulling the dried blood under his hair. Shinji winced as he felt strands of hair being pulled out along with the blood. Misato gasped as she saw the wound in Shinji's head. It looked nastier than it was though and it just needed some cleaning and antiseptics and a few bandages. As soon as Misato finished with the bandages, Shinji rushed back to the chair beside the couch and sat down to keep close look over Rei. Misato decided to want to know what happened. Shinji started explaining with a hushed voice to not wake Rei up.

"A couple of thugs knocked me down and took Rei away to an old subway station; I found them and took Rei with me." Misato looked sceptically at him.

"A bit more details please." Shinji sighed and added a few details.

"I was angry as hell and…well; I managed to scare them away…"

"Yeah, right. Listen, I know what those thugs are like. How many of them were there?"

"Three."

"And you scared them all away; you jumped out from behind a corner and said 'Boooh! I'm a ghost!'?" Shinji lost his temper around that point and started talking with a bit louder voice.

"I tackled the first one and kicked him in the face! I hit the second one in the guts and knee-capped him in the face! I kicked the last one down on one knee and drove his face in the floor three times! Enough details or do you want to hear about how I broke their noses?" Misato looked at him with some admiration. She had never thought that he was capable of something like that.

'Rei will be all over him if she saw that. And I think that Asuka will too, and if they clash, then we'll hear it to the US and back, and not the way over the Pacific, but over the Atlantic.' She was right, they all should notice in a short while; Rei should be all over him.

* * *

Rei looked at Shinji with admiration in her eyes. Shinji had not left her side theses three days she had been asleep or sick.

'He did it for me…he did all that only for me. No one else has put him or herself in danger for me. The commander burned his hands while getting the entry plug open, but that was because he was afraid of losing the Eva pilot, not the person.' She had just woken up and seen Shinji's relieved smile. She did not know why, she maybe never will know why she did it, but she did.

The moment he saw that she was awake, she shot up and embraced him tightly, whispering thank you in his ear. And of course, Misato just happened to walk in on this.

'Great, now there'll be no break in this for Misato-san.' Shinji thought and carefully loosened Rei's grip around his neck. He had to clear his throat a couple of times before he could talk again.

"…um…do you want something to eat, or drink Rei? You have been out for most of the past three days. Don't worry; the school has been closed because of the last angels' attack."

"Some water please, Shinji-kun…" Shinji tensed and blushed a bit at this but went to get her drink. He glared at the grinning Misato in the doorway.

* * *

Shinji continued helping Rei until she was completely recovered, just in time for the call from NERV HQ. The angel was proceeding towards the Geofront.

* * *

The fight was short and synchronized according to the plan. The only thing affecting the outcome was when the cores of the duplicating angel(s) exploded, Shinji recalled the hug he had received from Rei and let the AT field drop a split second too early. As a result, Shinji was briefly wounded. The moment Shinji dropped the AT field, a piece of debris, namely a wood splinter, passed in between the plates of armour of the Eva unit, through the body, into the entry plug and piercing Shinji's left arm. Needless to say, it was an emergency for the guys at NERV. It was like the time when the cube-like flying fortress angel, Ramiel, had almost melted Evangelion Prototype Unit 00. Only that it was switched places. This time, it was Rei who ripped the damaged entry plug out and forced it open, with heat-proof gloves though. It was pretty messy in there. The entry plug was half full with LCL liquid, some blood mixed in and some blood on the walls. Shinji almost unconscious and a splinter the size of a pencil sticks out of his arm, blood covering the left arm of the plug suit. Shinji managed a smile before fainting, toppling over into Rei's arms.

* * *

He woke up in the hospital. The first thing he thought was not the freaking "another unknown ceiling", but the first thing a person with some mental sanity left would think;

'I'm in the hospital wing, someone is holding my hand.' He looked to the right. Rei was gently holding onto his right hand.

'It's Rei…' He smiled weakly at her. She looked into his eyes and smiled too. She seemed overcome with happiness in knowing that he was so okay that he was conscious. So overcome that she lunged forward, Shinji prepared for another hug, and was almost choked when he received a…


	3. Tough, Rough Night

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

The clearing of a throat pierced the air and Rei broke the hug. She blushed and sat back down on the chair and watched the captain walk towards the teens with a smile on her face. 

'So I was right…' She cleared her throat again and declared;

"The commander of NERV, Ikari Gendo, etc. etc. yaddi, yaddi, yadda... proclaims that we now have expected the last angel attack, we will from now on commence attacks on the angels using the new prototype units 000 and 001 in the flying robot system series. Langley Soryu will join in the attack using unit 002. More information will be given later on. You are on a paid holiday for six months on which you are free to do whatever you want as long as it is legal and/or morally or ethically right to do from this moment now on." She relaxed and threw her beret with the captains' logo and marks and medals on it in a chair.

"And unofficially: Congratulations on the victory over Israphel and get better soon Shinji-kun. I'm planning on having a great holiday just the three of us by at a famous sea resort in hypermodern class. Unfortunately, Asuka used her latest pay check to go on a five month holiday back to Germany to visit her relatives." Shinji smiled a bit uncertain and nodded.

"I'll try to get better as soon as I can." He looked at Rei.

"If Rei stays here and takes care of me I'm sure I'll be fine." She smiled back and nodded.

* * *

Said and done. Shinji got better in less than three weeks time and got home, the preparations took almost a week and when a month had passed, they all sat aboard the flight to the semester resort. They spent the time chatting and playing some games and watching the incredibly boring in flight movie.

* * *

As they got off the plane, a cab took them to the hotel they should be staying at the next two months. None of them could believe it. Two months at a famous resort with nothing to worry about. At first, Rei had not understood the big deal with going to such a place, then Shinji explained and she almost dragged him towards the cab.

* * *

The hotel room was a big, nice and air-conditioned story. There was nice tapestries, nice floors where the mats did not cover, they had a nice, big bathroom and on Shinji's order they had a small kitchen too. The hotel personnel could not for their lives figure out why they wanted to cook their own dinner. Then there was a small problem. Only two bedrooms-only two beds. Misato saw this first and decided on having a little more fun on Shinji and Rei's expense. She grabbed the largest bed and left the two teenagers with the smaller one. They shot angry glares at Misato the rest of the day. It was pretty much spent glaring at Misato and settling in. Shinji and Rei sat on the small concrete balcony and admired the sunset seemingly going down into the sea. The sky was afire and the sea glimmered with the reflected light. Rei had never seen such beauty. She sighed happily and absentmindedly leaned her head onto Shinji's shoulder. Purely out of reflex, Shinji put his arm around her shoulders and slightly touched her head with his. Rei flinched slightly and then calmed down. She smiled and snuggled up next to Shinji.

'It is indeed a beautiful image.' Misato thought and took another sip of her beer.

'The sun is casting its last, dying rays upon this beach and upon the two people in love that tenderly embrace under its grace. These two young people will… what the hell is in this beer that makes me fell so freakin' funny?' She shrugged and shook her head to get rid of the, as she thought, slimy poetic crap spinning through her head. She threw the rest of her beer into the open fireplace. The explosion echoed for a second through the rooms of the flat they had rented and Misato had to take another shower. Shinji and Rei continued watching the sunset without taking any notice of what was happening behind them.

* * *

"Well, I'll sleep on the floor and you can take the bed then." Shinji did not approve of this.

"No, I'll sleep on the floor, you'll sleep in the bed, and that's final." Rei started shooting daggers at him with her eyes and started shouting a protest, but could not continue doing this as Shinji swept the feet from under her with a practiced sweeping kick along the floor that was soft enough not to hurt her but hard enough to knock her off her feet. He caught her in the air and heaved laid her on the bed.

"I said it's final, you're still bruised and you could get hurt from sleeping on the floor." He said this as he gently put a hand on her forehead and gently, gently pushed her head down on the pillow.

'It's good that she had already changed her clothes.' Shinji thought as he put the sheet over her and mockingly patted her on the head and smiled.

"Good night." Rei just glared at him and closed her eyes as she turned to face the opposite direction of Shinji and promptly fell asleep. Shinji sighed in relief and lay down on the floor and pulled a blanket from the couch over him and put a pillow from said couch under his head. Despite the discomfort, Shinji soon fell asleep. It was however, not one of the peaceful nature.

* * *

'So…wonder girl has finally caught you, eh?'

'What are you talking about Asuka-san?'

'Baka Shinji! You and wonder girl are an item now right? You're dating, hugging, kissing, humping!'

'What on earth are you talking about?'

'You two are having sex, intercourse, you're humping, banging, screwing…'

'Shut up! Just shut up!'

'Oh…now you make me sad, Shinji…sad and angry! Only for that, look what I'll do to your little wonder girl here…look, you just grab her neck and pull! And pull! And pull! And pull! And pull…oh no, it broke…it's all your fault, baka Shinji! All your fault, Baka Shinji! Baka Shinji!'

'Noooooo!" the last scream followed from the dream to the reality, and Shinji shot up. He looked wild-eyed around the room, making sure that no hostile entities were around. The only sound audible now were Misato's drunk snoring (how the heck she should make it through a day at the beach with the hangover was another mystery to add to the list.) and one of those noisy alarm clocks ticking away with high self-esteem without a care in the world. And then the soft voice of Rei.

"What's the matter, Shinji?" Shinji sighed louder than ever before in relief. Rei had not suffered the terrible fate he had dreamed of. Then Asuka popped up behind Rei with a grin over her face.

"Look…it broke again…" Asuka held up Rei's head upside down in the air pipe. Blood trickled down in drops on the bed, making spots that grew, grew, grew. And that horrible red colour spread. And Asuka laughed.

"Noooooo!" the last scream followed from the dream to the reality, and Shinji shot up. He looked wild-eyed around the room, making sure that no hostile entities were around. The only sound audible now were Misato's drunk snoring (how the heck she should make it through a day at the beach with the hangover was another mystery to add to the list.) and one of those noisy alarm clocks ticking away with high self-esteem without a care in the world. And then the soft voice of Rei.

"What's the matter, Shinji?" Shinji sighed louder than ever before in relief. Then he looked absolutely terrified. He sprang onto his feet and ran over to the other side of the room, looking high and low for something.

"What's the matter?" Shinji looked at her, a slightly mad look in his eyes. He ran up to her sitting form in the bed and grabbed her shoulders a bit harder than he had intended.

"Have you seen Asuka-san?" He asked, voice hushed so low he could, but the panic shone through. Rei looked him deep in the eyes and took his head in her hands.

"No. Was it a nightmare?" Shinji nodded slightly to not break Rei's hold of his head. It felt soothing, comforting.

"Do you want to talk about it? I have heard that people tend to feel better after talking about things that the feel is troubling them." Shinji started sobbing slightly and sat down on the bed next to Rei, careful not to break the hold of her hands around his face.

"It was terrible…terrible. Asuka-san shouted…things about you and…me, and accused us of…doing…things…then she…she…" Shinji had started to cry at this point, and Rei held him protectively in her arms. "…she killed…she killed you…she ripped your head…oh, my god…then I woke up, or I thought I did, and then she appeared out of nowhere and…and …did it…again…" He cried without control now, wetting the front of her nightgown. He eventually calmed down and fell asleep, still cradled in Rei's arms. She leaned back against the wall with Shinji's head in her lap and started absentmindedly stroking his hair as she whispered small soothing things. The rest of the night went peacefully along as Rei fell asleep.

* * *

Misato sat up in her bed, scratching her head and stretching her back with a yawn that would have made any Mongolian warlord jealous of not having that sound their battle cry. Soon after, Rei ascended from sleep and watched Shinji's head in her lap. The rest of him lay sprawled out over the rest of the bed, covers in a messy heap down at his feet. Following Rei, Shinji also ascended from his coma-like sleep and looked around as good as he could in her lap while his brain booted up. When the brain was almost done, he had the audiovisuals at least, but the memories of last night were still working on coming back. He turned beet red as he got a grip on where his head was. Or where the rest of his body was. Luckily, before he started blabbering excuses, his mind made a last push and flung the memories back in his head with the speed of a concord on the afterburners. He relaxed a bit.

'So…now what?' His brains were still pretty much fried, even if they just got booted up. It worked like that. Despite if the brains of Shinji worked flawlessly, well as flawlessly as Shinji can get, they always fried as soon as she was any closer than two metres from a girl he thought was cute. Shinji thought Rei was absolutely beautiful. And as a result, he's fried.

"Ohayo, Shinji." Rei smiled down on him. His brain restarted and got out of the fried state for the time being. He looked up at her as good as he could.

"Ohayo, Rei." They looked each other deep in the eyes, and for some reason, the distance between their faces seemed to shrink…a scream from the kitchen broke the moment and they looked with murder in their eyes towards the half-dressed drunk with a beer can in her hand standing in the doorway.

"That's how I…" Misato began screaming.

"Start my morning…" Shinji and Rei finished, still in perfect unison. They untangled from each other and both of them blushed as they were done doing the untangling. They both had accidentally brushed against a few "special places" and they tried their best not to look each other directly in the eyes.

* * *

At the breakfast table, Misato tried her best to tease the teens that sat directly opposite her at the table. She succeeded in some aspects. Mostly, she tried to lure out of them why Shinji and Rei had shared bed during the night. And Shinji's answer that he had a nightmare did not work with Misato, despite the fact that it was true.

"So…Shinji-kun, what did you and Rei do?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on, you were all over her in her bed as much as I can recall."

"I just had a nightmare and Rei was there for me. That's all." Rei nodded, with a slight hint of disappointment. Misato decided to drop it for the time being.

"So…what was this nightmare about?" Shinji looked at Rei. She nodded.

"The more you tell, the less the chances of getting seriously traumatized by it later." Shinji sighed and recalled the horrible nightmare.

"It was about…Asuka-san. She accused me of…having something…with Rei. And she got mad at me and…" the sobs re-emerged. "…and…she killed…Rei…and when I woke up, or I thought that I woke up, everything was normal. But then Asuka-san came back…and she…and she…killed…Rei again…" He said the last piece very low, and very interrupted by sobbing. Rei gently embraced him, whispered soothingly in his ear. Misato watched the whole scenario with a raised eyebrow.

'Sure, that was a scary nightmare; just having Asuka in it is surely enough, right? But having her killing Rei, and twice, that's a bit rough for one night. I see why he's upset, if the same thing had happened to the person that I liked I would be devastated. Or that is, if I have someone that I like. Shinji and Rei definitely like each other, they just can't tell each other or maybe not even themselves. Now I've gotten something similar from the wine as I got from the beer, dammit!' Misato sighed and flung the half-full wine bottle in the fireplace. Luckily for the inhabitants, it was not ablaze.


	4. The Unexpected Happens

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

After breakfast and getting ready, they all went down to the beach for a long, nice day of soaking and sunbathing. The vacation was well needed. Shinji made sure to walk close to Rei to scare off any potential bachelor-on-the-hunt. After fifteen minutes he go so tired on guys trying to hit on Rei that he started snarling at the ones that got less distance between them and Rei. The word spread over the beach and the guys backed off when they saw Shinji walking alongside Misato and Rei. Rei just enjoyed the situation; it felt like Shinji was protecting her again. Misato didn't care whether Shinji scared the guys off or not, she was half-sleepwalking and did not care about anything but finding a shadowy spot on the beach. Her omnipresent hangover followed her anywhere and anytime. She was so tired from the hangover that she snarled at a guy herself. Needless to say, he scurried off to his buddies with tears in his eyes.

Well, what you can say to their defence is that both females looked absolutely divine. Misato in her mini-bikini in red, going along with her lipstick and red flip-flops on her feet. But that was not what caught Shinji's undivided attention. It was Rei. In her bikini in a clear, icy blue that went well along with her hair and her pale skin, and it was a good contrast against her red eyes. Well, Shinji thought a bit too much on how good that bikini did look against his own conscious. As a result, he ended up getting a trickle of blood down his face.

* * *

At last they found their long-searched for shadowy spot. It was far away from most of the crowds and close to the end of the beach and one of the barbeque places that should be lit later on, a bit into the night, stood close enough for them to use. Misato immediately threw herself down on a large towel and pulled a beer out of her cooling-bag. Shinji and Rei put up the rest of the towels and a large parasol. Shinji then rushed out in the water with a shriek of glee and began swimming out to a raft ten metres out in the water, steadily anchored on concrete on the sea floor. He heaved himself up and gestured for Rei to join him. She gestured something like;

'Get back here you moron! I can't swim!' Shinji sighed and swam back to her. Now his hard work of teaching Rei how to swim began.

They walked out in the water, hand in hand until they were waist-deep in the water. The foam rose high behind them as the waves broke against the shore and some rocks and boulders at the end of the beach. Shinji went down on one knee and stretched out his arms that now were parallel to the water surface, just below it.

"Lie down on your stomach and tilt your head up, you should face forward, not down into the water." Rei thought it felt a bit awkward but did as he told her. He held her stomach with his right hand and just above her kneecaps with the left.

"Okay, stretch your arms out before you, palms together. That's good, now you should…" They did this for more than two hours, and when they were done, Rei knew the basics of swimming. They went back out of the water and grabbed a bit of lunch from the basket they brought with them. Misato was busy snoring away under her hat. After half an hour all that was left of Shinji and Rei's lunches were a few empty water bottles and papers. They quickly collected it and stuffed it down into the basket. They then resumed the swimming lessons. Rei steadily got better and better on swimming. When the evening came to the beach and the barbeques were fired up, Rei could swim several metres without sinking too much. Then it was a question of swimming style. She made a dog feel like an Olympic swimmer in a question of grace. She splashed water everywhere while propelling herself forward. Not that Shinji cared, no but others who got their things soaked and had to move to the more crowded places on the beach, thus leaving the trio alone on their little stretch of beach.

* * *

Misato woke up as the fire was on its peak and started laying out barbeque ingredients on a big platter. There was beef, fish vegetables, flesh, fruits, and sticks, pretty much everything you could want for making a barbeque stick. Shinji and Rei stared in disbelief at the lot. They hadn't even noticed the extra baskets that Misato apparently had carried by herself.

* * *

'The fire is slowly dying with a reddish colour that perfectly matched the previous sunset a few hours ago. The shadows grow longer by the minute and the couple on the little raft is sitting close, listening to the cicadas in the grass not far from here and the birds that shrieks over this beach that…what the hell is in this screwed up beer?' but the sun had indeed gone down a while ago and the shadows grew longer on the raft that now was occupied by only two people. They sat close, occupied by a dialogue between the two of them.

* * *

"What I wanted to say was…thank you. For not laughing at me…and taking care of me this night…" Rei smiled and put her head on his shoulder. They were both still wet from the swim out to the raft and the moon cast its rays on the younglings on the raft. Shinji put an arm around her shoulders absentmindedly.

"You're welcome, Shinji." This made Shinji smile and he sighed happily. Then he remembered something that had occurred a long time ago. He looked at Rei's calm shape.

"Rei…" Rei looked up at him.

"What?"

"Do you remember a month ago? When those thugs…you know, attacked and I scared them away?" Rei smiled at him and nodded.

"Hai." Then she added inaudibly;"It was the most wonderful and precious moment of my life." Shinji didn't hear this part and continued.

"Do you remember what we were talking about before that? About Misato-san teasing us about a relationship between the two of us." 'Like that's gonna happen.' He thought bitterly.

"Hai."

"What was it that you wanted to talk about with me?" Rei took a deep breath. She took another one to strengthen herself.

"I was wondering if there not was a relationship of that kind forming between us and I wanted to know if you thought that it would be a good thing or not." She said it all in one breath and she then looked away, blushing ferociously.

"But you think that's bad, right?" She whispered, almost to herself. The she felt a hand take hold of her cheek and turned her to face him.

"I don't." He whispered.

"Not at all." And he kissed her. And on the beach, Misato choked on her beer.

* * *

It was like an electrical surge going through their bodies, it was magical. It was wonderful it was their first kiss. They would always remember it, and how it felt. Shinji would forever remember every last detail of it. The feeling of Rei's soft lips against his own. Her soft, slow breath, gently tickling his upper lip. How her light, slender body, still damp with seawater, sliding a little against his felt. How she tasted, how they held each other on that raft, kissing for what felt like an eternity. And Misato sat on the beach, looking at her clock and wondering when they would stop.

When they at last broke the kiss, they sat a good while and just stared into each others' eyes, not uttering a single word. When they moved it was to resume looking at the moon. They just sat there holding each other tenderly.


	5. The Briefing

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

Misato crushed something that she held in her hand.

"What!"

'You heard me correctly. You are to make sure that 1. Pilot Soryu Asuka Langley gets as little contact with Pilot Ikari Shinji as possible. And 2. That Pilot Ayanami Rei and Pilot Ikari Shinji are spending as much time together as possible. This is because of the success in their synchronization attacks against Israphel. The commission were so impressed that they decided that the Pilots should continue the synchronization training. And I also have personal interests in seeing Pilot Ayanami Rei and Pilot Ikari Shinji working together. These actions will take place after the vacation of yours is over. I count on you, captain Katsuragi.' Misato sighed and hung up.

'This is one fine mess, I wonder what will happen now, and I wonder if the commander knows about this relationship between Rei and Shinji-kun.' She was being sickened tired by the fluffy stuff going on between Shinji and Rei.

'It's all –kun here and –kun there, I'm getting fed up with it. And now I'm supposed to encourage it? It's too much.' Her thoughts were interrupted by a series of laughter from behind a closed door. Misato went for another beer.

'Well, it's good that Shinji-kun can make Rei loosen up, she's always been too tense, but with Shinji-kun, she talks, laughs, cries, anything that she didn't do before. But then there's the romance factor. Is this really good? And if they are going to spend more time together, who knows what might happen?'

* * *

"Bulls eye!" Misato sighed; they had been playing video games in the hotel room all day since it's been raining since breakfast.

'And where the heck did they find an Eva video game?' She opened the door a crack and peeked in. Shinji and Rei were sitting on the bed, eyes glued on the screen where something vaguely looking similar to Unit 01 where jumping around, shooting at something that with some good imagination might look like Sachiel. She pushed the door open and cleared her throat. They didn't hear it over the video game. Misato cleared her throat exaggeratingly loud. They didn't hear it.

"Hey!" Shinji and Rei jumped and looked wild-eyed around the room until they found the source of the sound. It was a quite annoyed Misato.

"How about you two turn that thing off and come out here? I've got news from NERV HQ." Shinji and Rei almost fell out of the bed when they tried to get out in the living area first. They rammed Misato in the doorway and they all fell in a big heap on the floor. Shinji and Rei muttered and excuse and ran over to the couch, fighting over the most comfortable place, namely the other ones' lap. When Misato had gotten up and fetched another beer for herself as a replacement for the one she recently had dropped she sat down on a chair opposite the couch. Misato looked at Rei with a raised eyebrow; Shinji had lost the wrestling for the most comfortable place and ended up with Rei in his lap, not that he complained though. Misato pinched her nose-bridge. This was going to be tough, explaining something for a pair of love-sick teens in each others' lap. They had already started hugging like mad, and before Misato could stop them, a tickling fight had erupted. Misato downed her beer instantly.

* * *

When Misato had explained it to them, it was three hours later than when they had started. Before Shinji and Rei could run off into their room again, Misato pulled up an old package. It contained the miserably beaten pieces of a game of monopoly. But it worked, and they soon sat arguing whether you should pay the rent if you just passed ones' property or not.

* * *

"Ha! Pay up Shinji! I've got two hotels and three houses on this one, this is gonna sting in your wallet!" Shinji sighed and gave Rei the last of his bills in big numbers. Now he only had a few monopoly dollars left. Misato had once tried to cheat by sticking in some of her real dollars she had gotten somewhere. But the moment Rei had won them; Misato had snatched them back and ran off to hide them again. As the situation was, Rei was clearly in the lead with Misato close after and Shinji sadly far behind. Then good luck struck Shinji for once like a baseball bat. Misato rolled the right numbers. And she landed on his only property left. The biggest one with four hotels. Misato handed the money over and Shinji sat a good five minutes just laughing like a maniac. Then he landed on another one of Rei's properties and lost all of his money, the property he had left and he was out of the game. Shinji sat in the couch and watched the rest of the game cursing lady Fortune.

* * *

Rei won the rest of the game and spent the rest of the day mocking losers until their patience broke and Shinji, Misato and Rei fought a tickling war. Unfortunately as always, room service walked in and announced;

"Your laundry has been done to your specifications…" More than that the maid did not say, since she was quite stunned by the scene. Shinji and Rei in night clothing that were half-unbuttoned and Misato in her usual revealing outfit in a wrestling pile on the floor, hands under each others clothes. Misato glared a 'thank you' at the maid who scurried out of the room, noticeably redder than before.

* * *

Two months later, the trio returned home to spend some time in Tokyo-3. Well, spend some time with each other and at home and waste some time in school. Needless to say, when they returned home and Touji and Kensuke found out about Shinji and Rei, they went almost berserk with different feelings. The minute Shinji told them, Touji locked Shinji's head in a neck-lock under his arm and started shouting either in Shinji's ear or to Kensuke.

"You lucky son-of-a-…! Hey Kensuke! You heard the news?" Kensuke looked up from his laptop.

"What?"

"About Shinji and Ayanami!" Kensuke jerked and fixed his glasses at Shinji. Then he grinned.

"You lucky son-of-a-…!" By now, the class representative had stomped over to Touji and re-directed him from Shinji's to his own bench by the ear.

"You shall sit down quietly during class!" Touji grabbed his now red ear with tears in his eyes and a grinning Kensuke by the neck the moment Hikari turned around.

"And what the heck are you smiling at, eh?" Touji whispered.

"The lovebirds, the lovebirds, I swear." Kensuke panicky stuttered, trying to escape Touji's firm grip.

"Suzuhara! You are on detention!" Touji let go of Kensuke's ear.

"But, but…" He cried in dismay throughout the whole class. Kensuke, Shinji and Rei shook their heads and continued to ignore the teachers' unending blabbering about the second impact.

* * *

The remaining three months passed without anything worth memorizing happening. Shinji and Rei cuddled on, Misato was just sickened by the fluffy stuff all over the apartment, Kaji visited a couple of times, but Misato did her best trying to get him to realize that she was over him. She even shot at him a few times until he scurried off and hid somewhere. But he's a stubborn guy, and he kept coming until Misato chased him with her car through five blocks and locked him into a garbage can with too many chains and locks to be opened even by Houdini. After that, they didn't see him for a while. The school went on and on as usual with Touji and Kensuke as the class' clowns and they kept pinning Shinji down for details about him and Rei. Then the time for the mission came.

* * *

Shinji and Rei stood in one of the cages of NERV, in which the new units they should be piloting stood. They were almost identical to the units they already had piloted with a few exceptions. The bodies were like it always had been on the units. The arms, legs and heads also. The differences lay in that instead of the usual battery packs on their back, sticking up a couple of metres over the heads, there were large, not to say huge, something like backpacks on the units backs. These backpacks had big jet exhausts on the bottom, and the majority parts of the pack were fuel tanks. All in all, it looked like if someone had put a jetpack on its' back. Ikari Gendo smirked. He thought quite highly of himself for figuring this modification plan out.

* * *

'It's a great thing I figured out, putting jetpacks on the backs of the Eva units. And the commission thinks I needed to build all new units, now I can use the spare money for improving the units we already have.' Fuyutsuki Kozo sighed. The commander was quite stupid sometimes he had noticed.

* * *

"They look like our ordinary Eva's, only with jetpacks." Rei nodded.

"Sure does." They looked at the Eva units with doubt shining through in their eyes. Then they noticed something strange. A red Eva unit next to the purple and the blue one.

"I wonder if Asuka-san is coming on this mission too." Shinji said, mostly thinking loud.

"I think she does." Rei's voice was suddenly filled with something Shinji thought sounded like…fear? Shinji looked at her. Then in the direction Rei was facing. And he reeled back a step. Asuka stood at the entrance of the cage, shouting at a security guard who pressed himself against the wall, trying to get as far away from the redheaded girl as possible.

"What do you mean with 'not authorised in another five minutes'! Five minutes here or there! Baka!" Shinji and Rei closed their eyes as a slap echoed through the cages. When they looked again, Asuka was storming towards her red Eva unit.

"If someone as much as scratched it I'm gonna rip their heads clean off…"She muttered, sending shivers down Shinji's spine as he remembered the nightmare. He put a protective arm around Rei's shoulders. Asuka screeched to a halt in front of them as she saw this. She slowly and threatening turned to face the couple. Her face took a slightly redder colour.

"Well, hello…Shinji…and wonder girl…" Then she spotted the arm around Rei's shoulders. Rei scooted a little closer to Shinji under the murdering glares Asuka's eyes shot out randomly now. Asuka leaned a little closer and the yelled on the top of her lungs.

"What the hell do you think you are doing to my baka Shinji! Get the hell away from him you slut!" She pulled back her right arm, ready to slap, but Shinji glared at her.

"What did you say, Soryu Langley?" This frosty addressing made Asuka drop her arm and reel back a few steps.

"I…I…" Shinji glared even angrier at her.

"If I hear you say something like that to or about Rei-kun again, I won't be responsible for my actions." And with those words Shinji led Rei to the briefing room, leaving Asuka dumbfounded in the cage. The security guard smiled and nodded at them as they passed.

* * *

"When you destroy an angel, the AT field developed by that angel implodes and further increases the power of this destruction. The angels exist in a parallel dimension, an unseen dimension that the angels have found a way to escape from. They can break the barrier between the dimensions and travel into this, our dimension. However, the portal between the dimensions is hard to raise for a longer period of time, and thus, only one angel at a time can travel to this dimension or back to their own. We will launch a counterattack on the angels' dimension to once and for all get rid of the constant threat of the angels'. Getting to the dimension will be tricky, since we don't have the energy to open the portal on our own. As you might have guessed, the AT field is the key to open that portal. We will commence the attack as soon as we have an angel that can get us through that dimension. This is how it will work. We have an angel in our final dogma, Lilith, and this is the key to the third impact, if an angel makes contact with Lilith, the third impact will occur and the angels can rule this dimension as well. Lilith is restrained by the Lance of Longinus; Unit 000 will retrieve that lance and bring it up to the surface when the time comes. We will then use other means to restrain Lilith, but you don't have to worry about that." Ikari Gendo inhaled and exhaled a few times.

"When the angel then attacks, we will destroy it using the Lance of Longinus, since we cannot risk a close encounter. When the angels' AT field implodes, a tunnel, the portal will open for 3.5 seconds. During this period of time, you will fly in and travel to the dimension of the angels. There you will annihilate any angel you might encounter and/or destroy the source of the angels. There is no need to worry about the limited time of operation for your units. The jetpacks also contain batteries that guarantees several hours of operating time. Is the mission clear to you pilots?"

"Hai."

"Hai…"

"Hai, Otou-san…"

"Then the attack will commence as soon as we have an angel, Ikari Shinji, you will work as the offensive, Ayanami Rei, you will work as the defensive to protect the offensive, Soryu Asuka Langley, you have one of the most important tasks, you are the backup, and you will aid and/or replace any of the two others if necessary. You are dismissed."


	6. Terra Alternative

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

Shinji and Rei sat on the couch in front of the TV, not quite looking at the three hour documentary about snails. Shinji made a face as the image of an especially nasty slug came into focus and clicked the remote. He flipped to the first channel he found. It was a pornographic channel. Beet red, Shinji turned off the TV and took up a magazine that lay on the table. It was a porn magazine. He threw it across the room, even redder than before. Rei looked at him confused.

"Why did you turn it off? It seemed like a good show." Shinji looked at her with a face that showed that he wanted to scream 'Are you out of your mind!' in her face. She giggled.

"I'm only joking, although it was pretty interesting…" Shinji was at once very interested in the pattern of the carpet on the floor.

"You're too tense, you know." Rei snuggled up close to him and put her arms around his waist. Shinji smiled and put his arms around her and he turned the TV back on. Now he found a channel that showed a very good movie. It was just about to start.

"What's that movie called, Shinji-kun?"

"It's called 'Armageddon' and according to the newspaper it's very good, it's about a drilling team sent up to an oncoming asteroid to save humanity."

"Sounds like our job, saving humanity." The movie rolled on and they both were soon absorbed in it.

* * *

-Spoiler warning-

* * *

As the little romance scene with AJ and Grace took place, Shinji and Rei also had a little romance scene. They cuddled and kissed a bit on the couch when Misato walked in with a bowl of popcorn and sat down to watch the movie, not paying attention to the cuddling couple. She took a handful of popcorn and shoved it into her mouth.

"I love this movie." She said between the bites and thus interrupted the almost one hour of silence. Then the time came for the Shuttle launch. They all three sat as tense as ever and counted down with the persons in the control tower.

"3, 2, 1, 0!" And as the shuttles thrust upwards on their jet exhausts, they all cheered for the successful start.

* * *

-End spoiler warning-

* * *

When the movie ended, there were mixed feelings among the people watching. Shinji felt happy that the teams made it. Misato was feeling sad for the people who died both in space and on Earth. Rei sat and thought of how they made the special effects back in the twentieth century.

* * *

They all had a few relatively calm days at home, with a few exceptions when Asuka came over to visit. It always ended the same, either with the three pilots sitting in groups of one and two glaring at the other part. Or it ended with Asuka running away to her apartment crying or Rei running into her room, with Shinji coming in afterwards, trying to calm her down. This was one of the latter days. It had started off with Asuka coming to talk to Misato, then Shinji and Rei walked in and they talked a bit about the mission that lay ahead of them. Shinji later excused himself and went to fetch something from his room. And Misato went for a nap to sleep off some of the alcohol in her system. Then Asuka said something completely unprovoked.

"I hope nothing happens to your unit that may harm you in some way during the mission, wonder girl." Rei looked at her with fright in her eyes. She hated talking to the German girl.

"Why should it?"

"No, of course, how stupid of me, the commander would never let anything happen to his dear little doll." Tears threatened to break through Rei's eyes.

"I am not a doll." Asuka grinned triumphantly at Rei.

"Of course you are, you completely obey the commander. Even if you were told to commit suicide by driving three spikes through your right eye you should do it."

"I am not a doll." Rei repeated herself a bit louder.

"You are nothing but a pilot for the commander. Has he ever treated you as a person? No, he thinks of you as his marionette doll that he controls in the Eva unit by pulling strings. He controls you complet…"

"I am not a doll!" Rei stood up and slammed her fists down on the table, knocking a few coffee cups over and spilling the contents all over the table. Asuka ignored it and continued.

"ely and he knows it. He is your puppeteer and you are the…" A slap was heard in the kitchen before Rei bolted to her room and slammed the door shut behind her before throwing herself on her futon. She started crying. Shinji walked out in the kitchen with the camera he went to fetch in his hands. He had been interrupted in his actions of putting in a new film by Rei's shout and the film hung out of the back of the camera, ruined by exposure to the light.

"Asuka-san…I told you not to talk about that with Rei in that accusing way." Shinji put the camera down on the table a little harder than he had intended and went to Rei's room. Asuka smiled and walked out the front door. Her plan to ruin Rei's self confidence had worked beyond her wildest imaginations, or a least that's what she thought.

* * *

"Rei-kun…it's me, Shinji…I'm coming in." Shinji slid the door open and closed it quietly behind him. He walked over to Rei's futon and knelt down beside it. Rei's fragile body shuddered under inaudible crying, her sobs muted by the pillow she buried her face in. Shinji put a hand on her back and caressed it carefully, stroking it like on a cat. She looked up at him, and then threw herself in his arms and cried loudly onto his shoulder. Shinji held her and whispered soothingly in her ear, just like she had done for him when he had that horrible nightmare.

"I am not a doll, I am not a doll…" Rei repeated between the sobs while Shinji stroked her hair.

"Of course you are not…Misato-san is more of a doll than you are And you know how calm and balanced she is." They sat like that for two hours, and all the while Rei repeated the words 'I am not a doll' over and over again while Shinji held her and caressed her hair and back. At last her sobs subsided, and she laid down on her futon again, pulling Shinji down with her and snuggling up tight against his side still in his embrace. The clock was 23:54 and they soon fell asleep in each others' embrace.

* * *

The alarm pulled them out of their blissful sleep with a sound that everyone in Tokyo-3 has come to hate. They rushed out of the apartment without having the time to eat breakfast. It was lucky that they had fallen asleep in their ordinary clothes and did not have to run NERV HQ in their night garments. They arrived at the briefing room just in time to see Asuka scream at another security guard and then enter the briefing room. They ran inside to join the others.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, two of the three Eva units stood on ground level and watched the angel getting closer and closer. It was called Matriel. It was a large, oval body with four long, thin legs protruding directly from it, its black colour gleaming slightly in the weak morning sunlight. It tilted its body with the underside pointing towards them. Matriel's nine, round, orange eyes fixating the Eva units. It started moving towards them slowly, the body hanging mere metres over the ground. Shinji and Asuka waited. They were ordered not to engage in combat with it, Rei should use the Lance of Longinus to ensure a quick victory. The angel was only a few hundred metres from the Eva units when Ayanami Rei ascended from Central Dogma with the Lance of Longinus in her Eva's hands. Shinji blinked at her image in the comm. frames. She smiled and blinked back at him. Shinji did not doubt that they could take the angel out. They were heavily armed for this mission and they had many spare magazines or energy cells for the weaponry. Asuka's Eva unit carried two weapons except her progressive knife. A huge axe and a bazooka fitting the Eva. Asuka smiled while eyeing her weapons. Shinji's unit 01 carried his progressive knife, a rifle and a handgun in a waist-holster. He wondered how the handgun felt firing. Rei walked out in the weak sunlight, revealing what equipment she had. Her progressive knife of course and a huge laser sniper rifle hung in a chain over her back. She also held the Lance of Longinus in a firm grip. She focused on her task at hand; getting them all to the parallel dimension of the angels. She motioned for the others to be prepared and started measuring distance, velocity and other data needed. Once done, she threw the Lance with all of her Eva's might. The spear went clean through Matriel without even being hindered by the AT field. As the angel died, the AT field instantly imploded and the Lance disappeared into the portal that the imploding AT field had opened. 2.79 seconds later, the Eva units also disappeared into the portal between the dimensions. The portal closed exactly 3.5 seconds after it had opened.

* * *

Ikari Gendo looked at the big screen in the control room of NERV. He turned to Fuyutsuki and looked a bit embarrassed.

"Fuyutsuki, do you know how the hell are we supposed to get them out of there?" Fuyutsuki smacked a hand over his face and he groaned over the commanders' stupidity.

* * *

The portal seemed to be a long tunnel of rainbow coloured lights that stretched long into the horizon. The three Eva units and their pilots were hurled around in the tunnel like feathers in a maelstrom. After what seemed like an eternity, the tunnel got an end. A white light shone at them brighter and brighter until it filled their view and it felt like they were blind. Then the carpet of white lifted and they looked out over the world of the angels. They had landed on a hill-like mountain, looking somewhat like one just outside the city Tokyo-3. The grass stretched in every direction as far as they could see. Objects seemed to move in the tropical heat that made the air tremble and create optical movement illusions. All in all, the environment looked like the one in the outskirts of Tokyo-3. The Lance of Longinus sat buried in the hillside a few hundred metres from the place where the Eva units lay in a heap. In her unit, Asuka lay a few metres away from the other two on her back, she had held on to her weapons as hard as she could, and she held them up in the air, shaking them triumphantly. Shinji in his unit lay on his back on the ground with Rei's unit on top of him. Rei crawled off him and stated relieved that all of their weapons had followed through the portal with them and remained intact. They all stirred on the ground and got up. They looked around and Rei walked over to pick her Lance up. Shinji swung the rifle onto his back and pulled out his handgun. He inserted a clip and cocked a bullet. Asuka put her bazooka on her back and swung the axe a few trying times through the air. She nodded approvingly and looked at Rei who struggled to get the Lance out of the ground. She succeeded and stabbed in the air with it a few times to get rid of most of the dirt clinging to the blades. Then she started doing a complex kata with the Lance as a usual pole arm, swinging it masterfully and graciously. Shinji's and Asuka's jaws hit the ground with enough power to get measured on the Richter scale. On a dangerously high level. Rei opened a comm. link and smiled sheepishly while cocking her head and scratching the back of it.

"I only followed a pre-programmed kata to see whether the system functioned well or not. If I could do that sort of things, I would not have needed to be saved that time a long time ago." Asuka looked at Rei through the comm. link.

"What do you mean be saved?" Rei looked at Shinji who nodded.

"Tell her the story in short then." And Rei thought back at the time when she was attacked.

"It was during a jogging session six months ago. Shinji-kun and I had sat down to catch our breaths on a park bench when I was taken away by some thugs. Shinji-kun was knocked unconscious with a blunt instrument. When the thugs attacked me, I thought my last moment was there, they had carried me to an abandoned subway station. Then, Shinji-kun arrived and saved me." Shinji nodded in approval, thinking she was done.

"He was so heroic; he risked his own life to save me. He smashed the first one into a wall and kicked him. Then he beat up the other two quickly, and the last one he talked to. He said: 'If any of you ever lay your hands on my love, Rei, I will defend her with my life and slay you vile brutes who dares threaten her.' And then he disposed of the last one by driving the thugs' face into the floor with such power, such strength." She sighed at the slightly altered memory. Shinji sighed.

"Well, that's pretty much it." Shinji said to Asuka who stared at Shinji with disbelief. "Except for the speech." Shinji added, murmuring so low that only Asuka heard it. Then he walked forward and took the lead.

"Stay close, and stay sharp here." He looked at Rei in the small comm. link window. She was still daydreaming.

"That goes for you too, sweetie!" Rei jerked and was awakened from her daydreaming. She muttered something about that she was 'going to show Shinji-kun' something when they got home. Shinji ignored this and started walking. He glanced at the numbers showing how much battery time he had left. Under his time were also Asuka's and Rei's numbers. He looked again. He blinked. He looked a third time. He blinked. The box showing his time read:

'245hours23minutes38seconds'

The other ones times read similar numbers.

'He wasn't kidding when he said that we didn't need to worry about the battery time.' Shinji thought with a bit of admiration. It was pretty impressing to be able to expand the battery time from five minutes to more than one hundred days. They started walking down from the hill and kept walking when they reached the base.


	7. The One Who Flies On Golden Wings

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

They walked for a good three hours, and they were all quite tired when they decided to come to a halt. The sat down in a triangle and opened their entry plugs. Shinji was the first to climb out, completely drenched in LCL. He coughed hard to get the liquid out of his lungs so that he could start breathing normal air again. He looked over to Unit 00 and saw Rei sitting on her entry plug, dangling her legs in the air. A puddle of LCL on the ground beneath her showed that she had coughed up the liquid at the same time as he had. Rei waved at him and pointed towards the red unit. Asuka fought to stand up on the ground, apparently, she had tripped while climbing out of her entry plug and now she was covered in a mud made by earth mixed with LCL couched up from Asuka's lungs. It was not that very nice, Asuka thought, and she let them all hear it with some colourful expressions not suited for kids, most of them in German.

* * *

After Asuka had punched Shinji quite hard on the arm for laughing at her, Shinji pulled their supplies out of a small cargo hold in the foot of his Eva unit. They made up a small camp with three tents in a triangle, each of them in front of their own Eva unit for quick access in case of an emergency, and a campfire in the middle. After eating a small ration they all decided to just sit around and have some fun, while observing and making notes of how things were and worked in this dimension. The gravity seemed to be the same; they had at least not felt anything different while walking. The air was clean and nice to breath after the LCL in the entry plug for some three hours. The sun was setting in the horizon, casting a red hue on everything. A few big shadows moved against the horizon. The angels were close. The following day they would be able to find out how long the days and nights were here. Ritsuko had been quite clear on the point when she told them to note down, calculate and re-calculate everything in the other dimension.

* * *

Flashback –

* * *

Ritsuko's hand shot out and grabbed Shinji's ear. She yanked him close to her and screamed in his ear.

"Everything!"

End flashback –

* * *

The sun set a lot faster than in the dimension of humans, and the camp were soon engulfed in darkness. The dark was broken only in a small sphere in whose center the trios' campfire resided. Soon, it too was extinguished and the rustling of tent cloth, clothing and sleeping bags could be heard for a moment. The motion detectors activated around the camp. Not that they should prove necessary if an angel visited as the angels made quite a noise themselves, but if there were other life-forms that should prove hostile against the teens. They all soon fell asleep. The silence was only broken by the yelling of Asuka.

* * *

"Turn that frickin' SDAT player off, baka Shinji!" a click could be heard as Shinji embarrassed turned his beloved SDAT player off. Rei smiled in her sleep. Her subconscious replayed the scene when Shinji saved her from the thugs. She would always remember that scene.

* * *

"Have you turned that fucking thing on again!"

"Gomen!"

* * *

The sound pulled them out of their sleep simultaneously. It was the sound of a heavy explosion or something impacting at a high velocity. They all rushed out and looked up. They looked up at the dot that grew by the minute in the sky. It was a drop-shaped object coming down like a meteor onto the dusty ground a few miles away. The blast could be felt all the way over at the camp. Soon the shape of the angel came into sight. It was like three eyes hanging together by threads, three eyes glaring at the growing earth from the sky. Sahquiel looked down on its prey. The pilots rushed to their Eva units. Luckily, they all slept in their plug suits since neither of them though it would make such a big difference of they kept the LCL drenched clothes on or drenched new clothes to wear. The quickly activated the units and rushed off to meet the angel head-on. Shinji charged immediately as he got there first of them. He flew up using his jetpack to an equal height of the angel and pulled the progressive knife. He plunged it deep into the AT field and ripped it open, leaving it defenceless against the attack coming from Asuka. She flung her bazooka onto her shoulder and fired off a rocket straight into the centre eye and core of the angel. The explosion echoed over the field. When the smoke cleared, the two units on the ground saw how Unit 01 tumbled through the air, the jetpack on its back torn to shreds by the tremendous power of the blast, to land in a heap on the ground, creating a quite large crater. Rei screamed.

* * *

"Shinji-kun!"

Unit 01 had crawled up from the crater it had created in the impact and shook the dirt off. He looked up, estimating height, letting his look wander down while he let out a long whistle.

"Now, that's a fall." He shrugged and walked to the camp to eject the entry plug and get some more sleep. The girls stared in disbelief at him. Then Rei remembered that he was tougher than he looked. She smiled and ran over to the camp too to eject the entry plug and have a nice eye-to-eye talk and maybe some cuddling in a tent. Asuka sighed. She could barely stand the thought of Shinji and Rei together, and it only got worse by each time she tried to ruin their relationship as the couple more than made up for what Asuka had managed to do. Asuka walked over to the camp too to either get some sleep or be more social.

* * *

'At least with baka Shinji.' She thought with a slight hint of acid. She looked at the albino bluenette girl running over to talk to Shinji with disgust. She had never lost to anyone before she came to Japan, and she was not letting this trophy run away with some pale faced, blue haired redeye. She'd rather die, or kill…

The rest of the day had been spent chatting, training and just hanging around at the camp.

* * *

"Do you feel alright, Shinji-kun?" Rei leaned exaggeratedly close to Shinji and studied his facial expressions as they changed from relaxed to a bit nervous and then back to a relaxed look.

"I'm okay; I had my back to the explosion." He looked over at the Eva unit crouching on the ground with the jetpack beside it. It had a few holes with jagged rims and it was mostly blackened by heat. The jetpack was in short unusable, irreparable and, well, not useful anymore. He sighed and looked at the Eva with trouble in his eyes.

"I guess it can't be helped…" He murmured softly to himself. However, Rei overheard it.

"What can't be helped, Shinji-kun?" He looked over at Rei and smiled assuring at her.

"Nothing, I'm all fine." Rei however was not fooled by the simple 'nothing' response and decided to keep a close eye on Shinji for the next few days. So did Asuka, but for another reason. Rei did not have to wait though.

* * *

The purple Eva unit screamed as if in pain, crouching low to the ground, hugging its shoulders as if seeking comfort. It let out another deafening howl of anguish and pain and flung its head back, arching its back and stretching its arms out at the same time. Huge, yellow electrical-like wings protruded from its back, gleaming and surging with electrical power. They were ten to the number, and sat in a circle from a point on the Eva units back, going like a circle or halo behind it. The light emanating from them were enough to make the others to shield their eyes. Unit 01 started moving its wings, slowly and nervous at first, but soon they disappeared for the eye and became a blur that lifted the unit into the air with a grace far wider than the one provided by the jetpacks. Shinji smiled at the girls through the comm. window and explained the matter to them.

* * *

"It is a thing specially developed for this Eva unit since it stood my father closest to the heart and he wanted to give it an upper hand in any situation." Asuka and Rei snapped their dropped jaws back in place and activated their jetpacks. The tongues of fire and the plumes of smoke following them seemed if possible even more polluting than ever when they looked at how gracious Unit 01 moved through the clear morning air. Asuka gritted her teeth and flew higher than Rei, planning to put one of her plans into motion. She positioned herself over Unit 00 and boosted her jetpack, making the flames longer and hotter, burning the blue and white Eva unit plus disturbing it with her jet turbulence. Rei screamed as she fell to the ground a good kilometre beneath and a certain death. The there was a blur of yellow and purple and the 00 unit was securely in the grasp of Unit 01.

* * *

Asuka gritted her teeth just so quiet it could not be heard through the comm. radio system. Shinji and Rei let this pass for now since another angel was approaching. Shinji flew down and deposited Unit 00 on the ground. The jetpack was dented, but it could be repaired later on by Shinji. He flew up and positioned himself slightly in front of Asuka. They watched the angel advance. The black and white streaked ball seemed to flow on the air currents and go gradually closer and closer. He looked at Rei. He had put her in the way of the angel. He was sure that if the angel had had a mouth it should've had smiled in a mocking way at Shinji. Shinji projected the image of a grinning angel in his mind and went almost mad with rage as he had accidentally put the image of a slowly disappearing Rei in the scene. He aimed with his handgun and fired a testing round.

* * *

The angel vanished without a sound instantly before the bullet could hit. A huge shadow shot out from under where it had been and loomed there. Shinji swallowed as he realized that the shadow was quite strange. Any boulders or trees that were within the shadow perimeter seemed to sink in its darkness. The angel reappeared, but the shadow remained. Shinji and Asuka and Rei stood facing the strange angel Leriel. Then at the same time, a virus started infecting the nearest piece of technology that it could find. Rei's progressive knife. They all now had two angels to deal with at the same time. Rei ripped the knife out from its sheath and threw it into the ground. The virus could actually be seen as small golden particles travelling up and down the full length of the knife. The angel was called Ireul, and was the virus. It started searching for a way to enter the Evangelion units' bodies. It started trying to take over Rei's unit. Rei stared at the knife and the swung her laser rifle from her back and aimed directly at the knife a hundred metres away. She fired one, well-placed shot. It tore the knife into shreds in a deafening explosion. And with the knife, every piece of the virus-like angel Ireul disappeared.

* * *

Asuka and Shinji had a slightly tougher time dealing with Leriel. They worked frenetically on a tactic, testing weaknesses and strengths as good as they could. Their brains worked overtime, and then they figured it out. Shinji proved their theory by shooting at Leriel. It vanished and then appeared a few minutes later. He fired another round the moment the angel reappeared and noticed that the angel moved now to avoid the round. Without another word, Asuka charged.

* * *

Shinji fired another round and the angel disappeared. As it reappeared again, Asuka hovered a few hundred metres behind it, grinning maniacally and aiming her bazooka at the angel. She pulled the trigger as soon as she saw it appear. The rocket jetted through the air with a plume of smoke behind it. Its pointy tip pierced the angel and the missile buried itself in the core positioned in the middle of the sphere-like angel. Leriel was torn inside out, blood and pieces of flesh flying and raining everywhere as the rocket detonated itself and destroyed the core as well. The Eva units in the air were tossed around in the shockwaves like leaves in an autumn storm. They flew down to join Rei whose unit lay in a heap on the ground, pressed there by the shockwaves. As expected, Asuka did not lift a finger to help Rei. But Rei only focused on Shinji, who always had to save her. She cherished it sometimes; it made her feel as wanted as she was. At least by the one person close to her geographically who loved her, the other one wanted to have her intestines with her morning cereals. Rei didn't know about this though, but the continuous glares at her back thrown by Asuka made her feel a bit uneasy, and who can blame her? 


	8. The Fight And The Deadly Aftermath

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

The camp was unsettlingly quiet during dinner, afternoon and during the evening meal. These events were spent in the usual grouping, with Shinji and Rei cuddling in front of their tents standing close to each other and Asuka spontaneously glaring at them. Shinji did his best shrugging these stares off, but it kept getting harder and harder. Shinji also noticed that Rei was beginning to act a bit more nervous than before, sometimes glancing at Asuka with fright in her eyes. Asuka kept cursing them in all the languages she knew in her mind, or at least cursing Rei for "stealing 'her' Shinji". The couple was therefore thankful when the dark once again settled upon their small camp and the shadows of the Eva units were looming longer and longer over them. The last light gave an eerie glow to Asuka's red hair. She smiled and shook the small bottle of pills in her hand. The small plastic window on the side gave her a good look of the small yellow and red pills jumping around rattling. The skull on the side of the bottle giving her thoughts a body as Asuka started walking towards the food crates.

* * *

For the third time, the teens were awoken by a loud sound. It was another explosion crashing through the silence of the morning. Shinji rushed out in the chilly morning air, cursing over not for once getting a good night sleep. He slapped the side of Rei's tent and let her know that they were in a hurry. A heap load of hurry. He ran over to the slightly isolated tent and shouted at Asuka that they needed to get ready. The setup went quickly thanks to everyone sleeping in their plug suits. The Eva's were soon moving cautiously towards the angel. It had the usual mask-like face; it looked like a ring of porcelain with a hook down wards in it almost looking like a nose, splitting the face in three for the eyes and the mouth. It was big and looking like a sort of chubby penguin with extremely small and thin arms. They looked like paper almost. And these were the angels' greatest weapons. Zeruel hovered in the air a good hundred metres away from them and watched as the Eva units all pulled out their weapons and cocked them. A red spot danced over the torso of the angel as Shinji searched for and found the core, located where the heart should be located if the thing had been human. Rei looked down the scope of her laser rifle and Asuka simply pointed the bazooka at the angel. The angel wrinkled its face almost looking like it was smiling. Then it unfolded its arms and they shot forward before any of the pilots could react. Rei could only watch in shock as the paper-thin arms jetted towards her. Then Shinji leapt out in front of her and took the impact. Despite the fact that the arms were paper thin, they were incredibly strong, and the force of the impact should have launched Unit 01 several tenths of metres, but Rei stood behind him and he crashed into her who helped him back up on his feet. Asuka gritted her teeth and watched the angel retract its arms, preparing for another blow. But before it even had retracted the arms completely, it was struck to the ground by a small, concentrated explosion to the face. Asuka stood grinning with the barrel of the bazooka smoking. Shinji didn't care to pick the rifle up from where he had dropped it and charged towards the somewhat startled angel. The eyes of Zeruel glowed with a fiery, yellow glow that suddenly burst out like an explosion from the eyes, tearing the left arm of Unit 01 off by the elbow. The underarm crashed down on the ground fifty metres away from the place where the purple Eva unit now were beating the angel senseless with its remaining arm. A crack appeared in the core. Then the angel made a last, dying try to escape or at least make some difference in the battle. An arm shot out at Rei again, and this time, no one was there to protect her. This time, it went vertically through the air and cut through Rei's units' left shoulder by the joint easily as through butter and severed it. She screamed and gripped her shoulder. It was still there, but she felt the pain of her unit, and she was paralyzed by it. Shinji looked behind him and went all pale as all of his blood flowed away from his face.

"Rei-kun!" He faced the angel again, but was met with the other arm to the face, vertically too. Shinji jerked his head sideways and just barely missed it. He punched the angel square right in the face and the mask-like face crumpled a bit to Shinji's pleasure. He started kicking the angel, but he was thrown off the angel by a tremendous amount of force and landed by the feet of Asuka's Eva unit. He got up and watched as the angel floated up in the air again. He felt something slip into his remaining right hand. It was Asuka's axe. Apparently, the angel had hurt her too. He looked on her Eva unit and gasped. The right leg was off by the knee-cap. Some of the fluids running through the artificial body dripped down on the ground. Then he realized what the explosion had hit in the morning that woke him up. Asuka abruptly turned him around and shoved him towards the angel. Shinji did not put up much of a fight, as filled with rage as he was. He dashed towards the angel and swung the axe dangerously towards the angel who let its hands dart at Shinji. He angrily stomped down on one of the arms and buried the axe in it. It went off clean and he proceeded by digging the axe in to the ground and meet the other arm with his right arm. He gripped it and pulled Zeruel towards him as he kicked up the axe with his foot. It flew through the air and Shinji grabbed it as he let go of the angels' arm and swung the axe. Zeruel flew forward by the force of the pull and looked at the axe that came swinging down on its face. Shinji used all of his power and met the angels' face with the axe that buried itself in Zeruel's face with a crunching sound and blood gushing out everywhere. Shinji threw himself back from the angel, pulling the axe out with him and landed by Rei, picking up the rifle as he threw the axe back at Asuka who used the axe as a crutch. He looked down the scope of Rei's rifle and saw the crack he had made in the core of the angel. He clenched his teeth and squeezed the trigger, not stressing himself. The blue ball flew from the barrel and impacted with the core. The explosion echoed and stretched itself out over the field as the angel was torn to shreds.

* * *

"Are you alright?" Shinji put an arm around the trembling Rei after he had made sure that Asuka was completely alright. Rei nodded, but winced from the jolt of pain from her shoulder. Her brain still imagined that it was her arm that had been cut off. The pain slowly subsided and she started to regain the feeling in her arm. She tried to bend her fingers and threw herself onto Shinji's shoulder as the nerves didn't respond.

"It's alright, it'll come back to you, I know it will." Rei looked at him and knew that he was right. They had both experienced the severing of limbs of the Eva units and knew that it would be alright after a while.

"I'll get you something to eat." Rei looked up at him and watched as he got some food from one of the crates. Asuka smirked. Her plan was working. But her subconscious tried to make contact with her delusioned mind that screamed 'kill her!' at Asuka who gladly obeyed. She watched Rei take a bite out of her food. Then another one. Then the cramps started.

"Rei-kun! What's wrong!" Rei pointed towards the food. She whispered something over and over again.

"Antibiotics…antidote…antibiotics…antidote…" She lifted a quivering hand and pointed at a purse. Shinji darted towards it and started digging in it. He found a small needle. It was a needle of the kind the military uses for morphine, just rip it out of the wrapping and stab it into the leg of the person. He ran over to the now twitching girl and raised the needle to stab it into Rei's leg when Rei shook her head, it was almost impossible to make out from between the twitches, but Shinji saw it and looked at her. She leaned her head back and pointed at her throat. Without hesitation, Shinji pressed the needle into a main artery and saw the needle being emptied of its clear liquid content. Rei soon stopped shaking and twitching and passed out. Shinji checked her pulse, found that it was okay and carried her into the tent where he sat down beside her futon and watched her. He went out once and came back with Rei's purse, just in case of another attack. The hours went by painfully slow as the colour gradually returned to Rei's face. Shinji waited at her sleeping form for the rest of the day. Asuka's eyebrow twitched a bit in frustration over the failed murder attempt. Her subconscious mused at its success.

* * *

"Allergic to any kind of penicillin or antibiotics, huh?" Rei nodded. Shinji still sat by Rei's futon and watched her fragile body trying to recover from the allergic reaction.

"Lucky you that you recognized what hit you and got some antidote with you." A faint smile flashed across Rei's face before she returned to a feverish sleep. Shinji raged in his mind, but kept up a calm façade on the outside. He was so going to get Asuka for this as soon as they got home. But for now, they needed her to help take out the angels. Then the thought struck him like the shinkansen.

'How in hell are we going to get back to our own dimension?' He shrugged the thought off as Rei turned in her sleep and put a hand on his knee. The returning was a matter he should deal with later. Shinji smiled and took her hand, gently stroking it. He softly planted a kiss on her sweaty forehead and resumed playing with different thoughts in his mind to make time fly faster. As usual, time only seemed to slow down, but Shinji was only glad, he kept watching Rei sleep and felt oddly at peace doing so.


	9. The Worst of Sins : Murder

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

Shinji was a bit surprised as he was able to slowly ascend to consciousness instead of getting his dreams torn to shreds by an ear-deafening explosion. The absence of loud sounds hung in the air like a guardian angel around the small camp. Shinji shook his head o get rid of the dizziness and instantly thought:

* * *

'Have we defeated the last of them?' Then he realized where he was. Snuggled up with Rei on her futon. Before he could notice, his mind and body started reacting differently. But he got control over his different aspects of mind and body before the fight between love and logic (quite perverted logic, but still) got all messy with sharp objects thrown objects thrown at each other. The main reason of him urging to get his mind and body under control was that Rei was beginning to stir. She sat up and looked a bit perplexed at him as she thought what the hell he was doing here. Then her mind kicked in, but not before she had kicked Shinji. He lay on the ground, running the words 'why me?' through his mind over and over again. Rei gasped and bent down.

* * *

"Gomen-nasai, Shinji-kun. I didn't realize that it was you." Shinji waved off the excuse with the words 'It's okay…' wheezed between his clenched teeth as he stood up. And hit his head in the stick that held up the small tent, thus pulling it down on the two of them. Shinji sighed.

* * *

"Gomen…" Rei smiled at his sudden clumsiness and pulled him down in a tight embrace. She pressed her lips on his, and when she broke it, she whispered in his ear;

* * *

"Let's use this morning good…" Then the most unexpected thing happened. Someone ripped the ripped down tent from them and marched over to the quite embarrassed couple on the travelling futon. Shinji stood up and glared at the person who Shinji for his life could not understand was there.

* * *

"And who in the hell are you?" The pale-skinned boy looked at Shinji with fiery red eyes.

"I am Nagisa Kaoru. Pleased to meet you." Shinji looked at him with further interest.

"I am Ikari Shinji. Are you human? And if yes, how did you get there?" Kaworu smiled with a smile that made Shinji wonder what the boy really wanted.

"I wonder what you do here too. And why you eradicated the angels residing here." Shinji sighed once again and started explaining.

"I and my friends Soryu Asuka Langley and Ayanami Rei are sent from NERV to ensure the survival of humankind using the Evange…" Shinji did not get any further as something hit Kaoru. Shinji looked down from Kaoru's now pain stricken face to the boys' groin and saw a foot. A foot that belonged to Asuka. Kaoru slowly toppled over and fainted, the weird smile still on his pained face.

"Asuka, what in hell are you doing?" Asuka panted heavily and delivered another kick to the groin of the boy lying facedown.

"He ripped down my tent and peeped on me!" Rei stood up groggily.

"What's all that ruckus about you nocturnal hooligans?" She swayed a bit and then steadied herself. She looked at the boy and absentmindedly kicked Kaoru for no apparent reason. Shinji joined the group and kicked the boy too. Then they all broke the camp up and continued the journey again, leaving the boy that called himself Nagisa Kaoru who would be writhing in pain the moment he woke up. An AT field slowly developed around him and raised him into the air, only to collapse under him and slam him into the ground. This repeated itself a few times before Kaoru gave up and decided to wait until his powers had recharged.

* * *

Shinji looked at the other two units and thought about the injuries they all had suffered during the mission that soon would come to an end. Shinji had gotten half of his left arm ripped off and gotten his jetpack blown to shreds, Rei had gotten her whole left arm cut off and Asuka had gotten her right leg blown off by the knee. Shinji had dropped his rifle a few miles ago in a lake and not bothered to get it. Asuka had 'dropped' her bazooka so that it just missed Rei and crashed into a nearby mountain. Rei had responded by throwing away her rifle so it knocked the axe that Asuka used for crutch away from under her.

* * *

"Hang on, wait for me you morons!" The three Eva units stopped dead in their tracks, turned around and stared at the boy who came towards them, running in a speed greater than their own.

"What do you want? You haven't even told us what you're doing here." Kaoru smiled and developed an AT field that raised him to face-to-face levels with the Eva units.

"Surprised, are you not?" Shinji did not bother to respond but lashed out with his remaining hand at the AT field and tried to pry it open. Kaoru smiled and shook his head.

"This is an AT field stronger than you ever have encountered before…" He was interrupted by Asuka's axe that came crashing down on his head.

"AAAGH! God dammit! You crazy bitch! God that hurt! Have you got no manners!" Kaoru kept screaming and cursing for a good five minutes. Shinji took this opportunity to grab the boy and beginning to squeeze him like an orange. It took Kaoru a few minutes to notice it.

"Ouch, okay, okay, I'll talk! What do you want to know?" His voice was quite pained, go figure.

"Let's start with how you became an angel if you haven't been that all the time." Kaoru thought about this for a moment and then answered in a quite mocking tone.

"I can send people to your house, bad people…" Shinji responded by squeezing a bit harder.

"Okay, okay! I'm an angel, as you call us, and I am the one who supposedly were strongest." Kaoru blabbered at an incredible speed. Shinji looked at him with a bit of doubt.

"And to prove it, I'll go and mate…no, meet with, the angel in your basement. See y'all suckers!" And with that, he raised another AT field and broke out of the hand of the purple Eva unit and fly off into the horizon, the Eva units running after him.

* * *

After a few hours of running, they all came to a halt before a building that rose tall and mighty in black onyx a good kilometre up in the air. Kaoru flew in and an eerie glow emitted from the building. It was shaped like a pyramid with myriads of windows along its sides. The ground and trees within five kilometres radius were blackened as if an immense heat had burned it.

* * *

The next angel to appear was a being of pure light. It seemed to have been waiting for them all, hovering over the pyramid-like building, letting its light shine as a very weak sun. Shinji was so caught in looking at it, that he did not see its attack. All he heard was Asuka's scream.

* * *

"No! Don't look in there! Mother, stop it!" Shinji looked at the angel and then at the red Eva unit. A beam of light seemed to connect them. Rei immediately threw the Lance of Longinus at it, but missed the angel roughly. The Lance embedded itself in the building, near the top. Rei wasted no time and went to retrieve it. Asuka continued screaming. Shinji activated the wings in his back and flew up to the same altitude as the angel, Arael. He watched the scenario from up there for a while and noted some things down in the oral logbook.

* * *

"Log number 01267532. The angel is identified as Arael and we will intercept it in an aerial combat sequence. Asuka-san has been attacked, possible psychological contamination is in progress. Rei-kun retrieves the Lance of Longinus to then pass it onto me who then will eradicate the angel. Over and out for log 01267532. He then flew down and retrieved the Lance of Longinus from Rei who then used her jetpack to then get to the same level as Shinji and Arael. Rei caught Shinji's progressive knife as he threw it to her and proceeded to grab it by the tip and launch it at Arael. This did not hurt the AT field as much as distracting the angel and making it possible for Shinji to jet forward and embed the Lance in the angel, who exploded without too much of a struggle. On the ground, Asuka lay on the ground in a foetal position, trembling and crying in her Eva. She soon got up however as she noticed another angel approaching in the distance. Now, Asuka's eyes got hard as agates and she clenched her axe with two hands. She activated her jetpack and flew to intercept Armisael.

* * *

"Log number 01267533. Another angel is approaching; the angel is called Armisael and is a double-helix shape in a circle. Asuka-san intercepts it with her axe this instant. The angel seems to be able to change its shape, and it is trying to embed itself into the body of Unit 002. Over and out for log 01267533."

* * *

The glowing, double-helix shaped angel was not too much of a fight for the berserker-like Asuka, who immediately cut the angel up to tiny pieces with the axe before finding the core. She carefully put it down on the ground, flew a good kilometre up in the air, and the came crashing down on it with her remaining foot. The explosion threw her back to where Shinji and Rei stood waiting and all Asuka did was to shrug and then proceed to advance on the building.

* * *

Shinji crawled up to the top of the building and looked down the hole that Rei's jetpack had burned open. He jumped down and landed on the floor, it too made out of onyx. He jumped out of the way just in time not to get squashed by the other Eva's jumping down the hole.

* * *

After a good fifteen minutes of crawling and walking through the corridors fitted for something the size of something in between of humans and angels, they came to a huge room located in the middle of the complex building.

* * *

The room was huge, almost three hundred metres to the roof and almost equally wide-spaced floor. In the middle, an orb, huge and red with ten metres radius stood in a pedestal. And before it, Nagisa Kaoru floated in the air. He gently touched it and a portal spring up behind it. But before he could jump into it, something brought its fist down on the orb, smashing it into pieces. Kaoru screamed, almost as if it was he who had been shattered, and looked wide-eyed at Unit 001. The portal started shrinking more and more.

* * *

"Smooth move, moron! When the portal closes, all the energy will have to go somewhere, and you destroyed the power containing core, so this whole dimension will blow to bits thanks to you! At least you'll be left here! Sayonara, suckers!" And with those words, Kaworu jumped into the steadily shrinking portal and disappeared. Shinji reacted quickly and grabbed Rei and Asuka's hands and pulled them with him. He threw them both into the portal and followed soon after. The dimension stretched before their eyes and everything went white.

* * *

"Ouch! I've had better landings…" Kaoru rubbed his backside, stood up and looked around. He was in the outskirts of Tokyo-3.

"Very well, I'll just keep travelling and then I will mate, no, meet with Adam. What comes of Adam returns to Adam."

"And what gives around comes around." A very pissed off Shinji said as he stood fuming behind Kaoru, completely drenched in LCL as usual. Kaoru reeled back a few steps.

"Well, well, well…If it isn't the three pilots. Why didn't I hear you land by the way?" Asuka stepped forward and grinned at him with a smile that looked like she would gladly bite him in the throat.

"You were too busy ranting about your precious Adam to hear us. The units are over there." She pointed with her thumb over her shoulder at Rei in her blue and white unit grasping the red Lance of Longinus by the hilt. Shinji spoke up again.

"Who is Adam anyway? Your boyfriend? No, wait…it's that the sissy angel, right? However…you were planning on leaving us there, so…we'll give you ten seconds head start. 1…2…3…" On three, Kaoru had already dashed off into a maze of old alleyways. By the time Shinji got to ten, Kaoru was leaning against a wall, panting heavily. He tried over and over again to raise an AT field. He smacked his face. His powers were bound to the core in his own dimension, without it, or an alternative power source, all he could do was merge with Adam.

* * *

'If I'll ever get to where he is…' He thought as he watched the three Eva units walk around in the city, searching for him.

'I'm screwed…unless…' He thought as he saw three thugs with bruises, band aids and bandages everywhere limp out from a neighbouring alleyway. He cleared his throat and made the thugs jump at the sound.

"Excuse me, gentlemen. I wonder if you could help me get rid of a troublesome friend of mine, Ikari Shinji and his friends Ayanami Rei and…" He didn't need to say more. The thugs scurried off, well, limped away, as fast as they could. Kaoru sighed and kicked in dismay at a blast door. It swung open to reveal a passageway down to NERV. Kaoru smiled and entered. The door swung closed behind him and almost clipped off a toe. Kaoru scurried cursing off towards the main corridors.

* * *

"Don't you think we should lock the doors in case someone tries to get in, commander?"

"Nah, it'll be fine Fuyutsuki."

* * *

"We'd better walk from here on. I think it would be better if we would wait for him in Central

Dogma." Shinji nodded and told Asuka the plan in short. They got out of the units and walked into NERV HQ. They proceeded to the commander's office to report and gain access to the most secretive part of the whole organization.

* * *

"Konbonwa, otou-san!" The commander and his second man were quite startled by the three teens bursting in through his door while he was playing Go.

"Ah, Shinji-kun…please report." Shinji took a deep breath.

"We have not yet completed the mission. There is one angel left, and it is somewhere in Tokyo-3." The commander raised a surprised eyebrow.

"Are your Evangelion units insufficient funds for eradicating this angel?"

"We do not want to wreak too much of a havoc inside the city perimeter, commander." Rei cut in. She walked up to the commanders' desk.

"The last angel is in the form of a boy in our age, he goes under the name of Nagisa Kaoru, and…" The commander stood up with a shocked expression on his face.

"Security just reported that they had gotten orders to let a Nagisa Kaoru through as the new Evangelion pilot sent here by SEELE. He is heading to Central Dogma according to the latest reports. What do you need to stop him?" Asuka and Shinji looked at each other and nodded, and then they walked up alongside with Rei and looked at the commander.

* * *

"What kind of handheld firearms do we have in this facility?" The commander smiled.

'That's my son…' He put in a six digit code on a pad on the desk and a screen appeared on the polished surface.

* * *

"To start off with the basic handguns, we have three different types. There is the Walther P99. It is a quite small and light handgun. It is a semi-automatic pistol made in Germany. The unloaded weight is a mere 700 grams and the barrel length is 102 mm. The complete length is 180 mm. It uses the ordinary 9 mm. bullets. Its detachable magazine capacity is quite good; originally 16 rounds, now 15 rounds.

* * *

And we have the classical Luger, used during the WWII by German navy mostly. It has a magazine capacity of 8 rounds in a detachable box. The P08 Luger, which we have in the armoury, has a stock and longer barrel, and sometimes used with a 32 round magazine; this model is also known as the 'Artillery Luger'.

* * *

And to finish the handgun category off, we have the British Enfield Revolver. It is quite classical using the cylinder with a 6 round capacity. It is a quite powerful weapon with a maximum range of 200 British yards and an effectively range on about 15 British yards. Used right, it can fire up to 30 bullets per minute, considering you reload pretty fast.

* * *

Moving onto the heavier guns. The Russian developed AK-47 is gas-operated with a rotating bolt which gives it a firing rate of 600 rounds per minute. The magazine capacity is a 30 round detachable box. The barrel length is 415 mm. and the total on an 870 mm. The unloaded weight is 4.3 kg.

* * *

Then the MP5A2, with an extractable stock for further aim improvement and recoil absorbing. It has a magazine in a 30 round detachable box. It works with a roller-delayed blowback and a closed bolt, giving it a high firing rate of 800 rounds per minute. It is made in Germany.

* * *

And then the 'Tommy gun', or the official, Thompson submachine gun M1928. It has as the others a 30 round detachable box and hard-hitting .45 calibre rounds. It has a mass of 4.9 kg. unloaded and a 852 millimetres length. It has a firing rate of 700 rounds per minute.

* * *

And as for the equipment, we have the typical MkIIA1 "pineapple" fragmentation hand grenade and the standard riot police equipment, complete with shields and helmets and that. Is this sufficient? The equipment is located in the armoury." The commander now grinned openly at the thought of this action as the last image of the guns faded from the screen on the desk. Shinji and the others also grinned happily. At last they had something different than the Eva units to battle with.

* * *

"This is going to be fun…"

* * *

"Man! How many blast doors are there going to be!" Kaoru looked at the humongous blast doors that stood tall before him. With an almost nonchalant flick of his wrist, Kaoru made the blast door crumble and then shatter in a million pieces before him with the force of a nuclear warhead. Kaoru walked a few metres before sensing something in the back of his mind, more than the feeling one can get using his 'sixth sense'. Well, he also heard the cocking of a bullet. He slowly turned around and stood face to face with the barrel of a Walther P99 handgun. He peered over the dot sights and saw a grinning Shinji in a military uniform with the AK-47 rifle slung over his back. He looked to Shinji's left and saw Asuka play with a Luger and a Thompson submachine gun slung over her shoulder. He looked at Rei to Shinji's right who held the stock of an MP5A2 against her shoulder, staring intensively at Kaoru through the hair-cross scope with a British Enfield Revolver in a holster at her hip. They all had riot police helmets and hand grenades. The riot shields lay in a pile near the entrance of this corridor.

* * *

"Are we going to continue the countdown? I don't think you heard all of it. 4…5…6…" Kaoru smiled nonchalantly.

"Fools, the closer I get to the angel in the Central Dogma, the stronger my powers get. Even though I don't have the AT field, I have this ability." He flicked his wrist at them and they were flung to the floor and skidded over the floor and came to a halt next to the pile of the shields. Shinji and Asuka put their pistols in their respective holsters and Rei slung her carbine over her shoulder and they picked up a shield each. They watched in fear as they got up and saw a gaping hole in the last blast door leading to the central dogma. They rushed forward and heard a scream in dismay and then a voice that laughed out that the person in question still had enough power to eradicate the whole of NERV HQ. They arrived at the Central Dogma and saw in terror how Kaoru kept materializing a bunker and a 'shit-load of guns', as Asuka so mildly put it. Kaoru soon finished the bunker and crept inside; a lot of gun-cocking could be heard. Rei looked at the bunker with an estimating look and pulled up her hand grenade of her pocket.

* * *

"No fair!" Kaoru yelled as he darted out of the bunker before the grenade ripped itself and the bunker to shreds, sending shrapnel of concrete and of the guns everywhere. Shinji put the handgun in its' holster and took out the AK-47, looking down the barrel of the rifle and squeezed the trigger.

* * *

The bullets emerged in small explosions that echoed throughout Central Dogma and jetted at Kaoru who ran screaming through the room, waving his hands in the air. Then he remembered the AT-field and activated it just in time to make the bullets bounce harmlessly off it. He grinned and flew towards Rei, thinking she was an easy target. Then she aimed with her gun and fired off a burst of bullets at him too. He cursed and felt how every hit made it harder for him to maintain the field. Asuka nonchalantly aimed with her Luger one-handed and fired off all the 32 bullets at him in a fast series before reloading, ready for another round. Shinji squeezed off another series of shots at him when Kaoru turned and attacked him absolutely furious.

* * *

Kaoru let his AT-field down for a second and used that time to get close enough to yank the gun out of Shinji's hands and hit him in the face with the stock. Shinji wiped off the blood from under his nose and pulled out his Walther P99. Kaoru smiled and flew a few metres backwards.

* * *

"You cannot hit me with my AT-field up…" As he said that, Shinji noticed the small, pineapple-shaped metal object under Kaoru's feet. Asuka held a sprint in her hand and gestured frantically at Shinji to 'get the fuck out of the way!' as Kaoru blabbered on and on about 'what is born of Adam must return to Adam' and then was thrown off his feet with an eradicated AT-field. The grenade had exploded and ripped apart the last of Kaoru's AT-field. Shinji spun around, aimed and shot Kaoru in the elbow. He felt the recoil from the gun go up his arm and then he saw the bullet emerge from the barrel, fly at Kaoru and embed itself in his arm. The bullet easily pierced the skin, tissues and muscles and then pulverized the bone to then slash its' way out the other side, bringing the blood with it in the vacuum created from its' high speed. Kaoru was flung to the floor, writhing in pain. The gun he so boldly had snatched from Shinji lay on the floor a few metres away. He wobbled up on his feet and ran to the inner circle of the Central Dogma. He looked at the giant nailed to the cross. Then he stomped angrily on the floor, holding his crushed elbow.

* * *

"Lilith! How the hell! You bastards! You Lilim have always been decisive, I've known that, but this is taking it a step too far!" He was cut off by Rei's revolver hitting on the back of his head three times. He turned around and stared at the three barrels with their black, gaping mouths at him.

* * *

"Sayonara, sucker…" It came from Asuka. Then there were three shots simultaneously and everything went white.

* * *

They pulled the triggers simultaneously and Kaoru's head was thrown back by the force and he fell into the sea of LCL surrounding the base of the cross where Lilith hung with…a jet fighter in its' chest? Shinji shrugged and thought that his father must have had a damn good reason for doing that and left, pulling the two girls after him in the arms. The light from the rest of the base surrounding them as they got out of the elevator.

* * *

'Now I must deal with the personal problems…' Shinji thought as he saw the two girls slowly draw their guns and raising them towards each other before Shinji snatched them out of the girls hands and shoved them towards the elevator. 


	10. The Shot In the Dark

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

"The mission is accomplished and the research material is collected from the Eva's, sir." Ritsuko rushed forward and snatched the file holding the research material from Shinji's hand. She sat down and eagerly started reading through it, drip of drool forming in the corner of her mouth.

* * *

"Very good, all of you. You may from now on consider yourselves on leave for the time being. You will be contacted when the leave is over. I believe that Akagi-sensei has something to talk to you about."

* * *

"Yes, thank you, commander. As you all know, Shinji has been collecting series of data during your mission in the parallel dimension of the angels. These data will be fabricated by our top computers, the MAGI, and give us the information we need to improve and evolve our Evangelion units using the S2 engines. This will take some time indeed, but for the time being, thank you is all that I can say to you all." They bowed and were dismissed with an incredibly simple question.

* * *

"What happened in the dimension, and how the hell did you get out of there?" Shinji then had to draw it up for the curious commander, vice-commander and doctor.

* * *

Shinji talked for a good hour and a half due to the repeated requests of details from Ritsuko's side. He finished at last and inhaled deeply. 

"Thank you Shinji. We will start the calculations as soon as you have left" Gendo looked down on the thick folder now put on his desktop and sighed. He had always hated reading anything thicker than the newspaper, and here he was now, stuck with a folder twice the size of the Sunday specials and it seemed to snicker at him. Gendo hurried up and dismissed them quickly with a flick of his wrist towards the door.

* * *

Back at the apartment buildings, Shinji and Rei waved a quick goodbye at Asuka and then started walking up the stairs. Asuka shot glares that would make an angel cower in fear, but it went unnoticed by the couple halfway up the stairs, however, Rei did feel an uncomfortable feeling between the shoulder blades. Asuka sighed and started walking towards her own shabby apartment, determined on making up a plan to make the couples' female part suffer for, as Asuka thought, "stealing her Shinji-kun" away from her. She patted the Luger in her pocket and cursed when it went off, burning a hole in her pants.

* * *

"When did Major Katsuragi say she would be back, Shinji-kun?" Rei sat on the couch, her fists balled up in her lap as always when she sat in that couch. 

"I don't know really, she said she'd be working late, so I guess she'll be back the usual time."

Shinji slammed a frying pan down on the table as he realized something.

"Were we really allowed to keep the weapons?" Rei looked to her right on the couch where the weaponry from the fight against the seventeenth angel lay. Rei had the feeling they should need them again.

"I think we'll be requiring these tools of warfare soon enough." Shinji halted for a second as he heard her utter those formal words. She had not done so in a long time. He shrugged it off however, and continued to cook dinner.

* * *

The dinner was eaten during silence and later the dishes were cleaned up under a similar silence, the only thing breaking the silence while they washed the dishes were the phone-call from NERV, telling them that the Eva's would be ready within a month.

* * *

A tear rolled down the pale, smooth skin of the half-German girl lying on the dirty old bed in the equally dirty old apartment. Asuka never really made an effort cleaning the place up since she though of I as an impossible task and that Rei would be back there to live there anyway. However, Asuka had started doubting that Rei would ever come back to the filthy hole of an apartment when Rei stayed at the clean, bright and with good company filled apartment of Misato. Asuka wiped the tear off her chin and sat up. She decided to take the actions against Shinji's girlfriend up a notch.

* * *

Asuka looked at the bottle of penicillin on the counter and then at the parts of the Luger on the table set up for oiling and caretaking. Asuka walked over to the table, sat down and started reassembling the parts, doing it as delicately as possible and oiling the parts she then pressed into place. She used such care as a mother would to a child. Asuka grinned as she snapped the clip into place and aimed at an image of Rei put up on the wall. The shot echoed through the apartment and dust rained down in the corners from the roof as a small hole appeared on the picture, right in between the eyes. Asuka grinned and tucked the gun into the holster under her arm and walked out the door, shielded by the shadows of the night.

* * *

I get a sense of foreboding as I look out the balcony, Rei-kun." Rei looked up from her book and focused on Shinji, who stood by the glass door to the balcony. Rei stood up and walked over next to him. She could do nothing but agree. The moon was big and bright, the clouds shining cold by the moons beams behind them. No stars were visible behind the clouds, and the night was quiet. Too quiet. They shrugged it off and walked over to the couch to read side by side before bedtime. Misato were back and out cold in her room. She had resumed her drinking the moment she got to the refrigerator after getting home from work. Neither of them noticed the shadow slipping in under their balcony, pulling out a rope with a hook, aiming for the balcony rail.

* * *

Neither Shinji nor Rei noticed the hook flying up towards the handrail of the balcony. Nor did they notice it missing its target, swoop back down and hitting the thrower on the head. The muffled cry in pain also went unnoticed, and so did the clanking of metal against metal as the hook finally attached to the rail. The shadow started moving up the rope.

* * *

Shinji yawned and was surprised to see Rei do the same. 

"I think it's time to go to bed, Rei-kun." Rei nodded a bit drowsily and followed Shinji as he stood up and started walking towards the bathroom. They both entered and the apartment once again was covered with silence save for the gritting of teeth and the nigh inaudible sound of the balcony door sliding open.

* * *

The rattle of the pills in the jar sounded far too high for Asuka's taste as she dripped a pair of each into the food and candy in the refrigerator. But it soon stopped as the last pills found their way into the last digestible thing in the refrigerator. The pills plopped down into the half-eaten fast-food package and Asuka put the empty pill bottle in her pants pocket. She started to get friendly with the dark, and her eyes adjusted just fine. She pulled up the Luger and turned the laser-sight on. 

The red dot played over the room, temporarily staying a few extra seconds on particular things.

* * *

She moved swiftly across the apartment and pushed the bathroom door open just a notch. Just so that she got the gun barrel inside with a clear shot. The dot focused at the back of Rei's head, and it lingered there, while a delicate finger squeezed the trigger further and further in, the hammer following, ready to punch down on the cocked bullet. The hammer retracted once more, before punching down. The shot echoed, ear-shattering in the small bathroom. The empty shell sounded like a little bell as it fell to the floor, smoking. Blood and bits of bone splattered over the bathroom mirror, where a spider-web of cracks appeared around the small hole in the middle. A scream echoed shortly after, and Asuka dropped the gun, letting it clatter on the floor.

* * *

Alright, I thought I should start with the A/N (Author's Notes) now. First of all: sorry for the pause between the updates, I am using a laptop with a wireless internet connection that always goes haywire as soon as I'm about to make something important. Secondly, I thought I should start off with some of the questions and answers I've received. First of all I want to say that I do know that Rei can swim and Shinji can't, but I made it the other way around because of the romance factor (Shinji helping Rei to learn something, plus, they get to be close) and I think this will have some significance later, I'm not sure. Anyway, more A/N is coming up, with more answers hopefully. 


	11. The Attack

Rei stared with an empty gaze at the blood on the mirror slowly dripping down into the sink, she slowly turned around and slumped down on her knees. Shinji stared at Rei, an equally empty gaze in his eyes as he clutched his left hand. The very hand that had combed her hair until he had dropped the comb. Asuka pushed the door open and stared at the scene before her. The mirror and sink was full of blood and a few pieces of shattered bone. Rei was slumped down on the floor, and Shinji clutched his left hand. She looked at the mirror that had the spider-web of cracks in it. She then stared at Rei and Shinji again. At the unharmed Rei, and at the bleeding Shinji.

* * *

The one factor that saved Rei's life was that Asuka had shivered slightly, making the laser dot shine into Shinji's eyes. He had then immediately lashed forward, gripping the gun barrel and yanking it upwards as the shot went off. The bullet had ripped through his hand, tearing a gaping hole in it and splattering the blood and bone everywhere.

* * *

Shinji dropped heavily to his knees and looked at Rei, confirming to himself that she was okay, before blacking out. The last thing he saw was Rei snapping out of the trance and flooring Asuka with a punch in the face, then kneeling speechlessly beside Shinji. He also saw Misato rush to the phone. The thing he lastly thought was;

'Misato-san, always the soldier, never asking why or what…'

* * *

White, sterile white. That was all he saw as he woke up. He noticed the cutting pain in the eyes caused by the naked light bulb in the ceiling. He noticed the feeling of the hospital gowns against his body. He noticed the immense pain in his hand and the feeling of a burden on his chest. Even though he did not know what it was, he decided it was feeling good, leaving it at that. Shinji closed his eyes again and slowly drifted away towards unconsciousness. But, despite his tired and wearied looks, he was not permitted any further rest by Ritsuko, who by pressing a button behind the one-way window increased the light emitted from the light bulb, thus making it impossible to sleep, let alone look without covering your eyes.

* * *

"I get it, I get it…" Shinji groaned in unison with the person lying on his chest. Shinji's brain and body came to a screeching halt. He sat up. He looked down on his chest. Tearstained gown. Blue hair. Pale face. Red eyes gazing up on him. Shinji sighed and fainted.

* * *

When he woke up again, the room was at an inhabitable brightness level. He looked at his chest. No Rei. Shinji fainted. The last thing he heard was a series of curses thrown in between sighs.

* * *

When he woke up again, Rei grabbed his eyelids and held them open.

"Quit fainting already!" Shinji blinked and looked at the right hand that held his now watering left eye open. The knuckles were blue-beaten and some seemed to have dislocated and later been abruptly put back into place. This made Shinji worry slightly over Asuka's health-condition.

* * *

"You didn't beat her too rough, did youuuor maybe you did….." Shinji's voice dropped to supersonic apologies as he saw the glance Rei gave him at the mentioning of Asuka's name.

* * *

"She's not dead…" Rei stated, colder than Pen-Pen in a tub of solid ice at the South Pole (if it still had existed that is). The glare almost made Shinji go hypothermic.

"That's good…isn't it…?" Rei glared again and Shinji's voice dropped to a bat conversation level.

* * *

As the doctors and technicians looked over the childrens' synchronisation charts, they noticed something incredibly odd.

"Langley Soryu, we have some questions we need answered."

"I know what you want to know." Asuka spit on the floor.

"We believe we know why these rash actions occurred."

"Oh, do you really? Please, do fill me in on the matter in which I apparently have no experience." The doctors, slightly taken aback by the girls' advanced use of words continued in a slightly cautious tone.

* * *

"Your synchronisation charts showed a significant drop in all aspects. Synchronisation with Unit 02 as well a mental stability have decreased to a mere 12." Asuka spit on the floor as the doctors ranted on about their precious charts. She abruptly cut them off.

* * *

"Shut up…I'll tell you why I did what I did." The doctors simultaneously picked up their portable voice recorders and started them up.

* * *

"Ever since the idiot and wondergirl came back from that freaking vacation with the major, they started getting closer and closer. I started to feel a bit rejected. As we went in to the other dimension, wondergirl started ranting about how the idiot had saved her from some thugs actually, I bet he never would have done that for me, that coward. Anyway, when we came back it got worse. They actually stopped seeing me as often as usual. I guess what had pushed me over the edge was the fact that the idiot was mine. My own! I can't let that, pale-skinned, -red-eyed freak steal MY baka-Shinji away from me! He's mine, I won't let him run away with that slut! He's all mine! Gott im Himmel! Er ist mein! Mein und mein allein! (God in heaven! He is mine! Mine and mine alone!)" As Asuka started screaming uncontrollable in the hearing room, the doctors and security guards rushed in and sedated her.

* * *

Shinji looked sad at the bandaged remains of his left hand. They had told him that once the remains had healed up, they would replace the missing fingers with artificial ones, but Shinji never had liked the idea of artificial limbs. He thought of it as a way of making the human body worth less and less the more you could replace. In the end, he thought, there would only be brains with artificial bodies. He sighed. Rei looked at him questioningly.

* * *

"Why are you so sad about having your limb repaired, Shinji-kun?" Shinji smiled weakly and explained his thoughts. Rei frowned.

"You might be right, it is most unsettling." Then she averted her eyes and stared at the ceiling for quite a while before standing up from the chair.

"I think I shall head to the cafeteria, do you require anything, Shinji-kun?" Shinji shook his head and let out a deep breath. He fell asleep as soon as the door clicked shut. When he woke up, he was someplace else.

* * *

The cold steel of the operating table made him feel tense as he bent his back, trying to get as little of him as possible to touch the steel. Someone held his left hand, he noticed.

"I am sorry, Shinji-kun. They told me to do this in order to make you relax." Before Shinji answered, he noticed the strange feeling in his left hand. He had five fingers again. He fainted.

* * *

Shinji was let out of the hospital a few days later, sad, but alive and healthy. He was sad because of Asuka's sentence. She had been put in a cell deep down in the NERV complex with the sentence of five years for attempted murder and assault on a fellow pilot. However, it would soon seem as if she would not have to sit the sentence out.

* * *

Keel Lorenz put the tips of his fingers together and smiled to the other holographic representations.

"Our plan falls into place."

"Even without Tabris…"

"The plan will commence…" The others followed.

* * *

Shinji had not even gotten to hear one word from either Asuka or the doctors taking care of her. Rei however, looked like a million bucks knowing that she had inherited an infinite amount of cash from someone she never heard of, at the sound of Asuka's sentence. It was clear that the relationship between the girls were not the one labelled "being on the best of terms".

* * *

Rei helped Shinji get on the couch as soon as they got home. Rei had to literally pry Misato off Shinji, since she almost crushed his hand while hugging him. However, the calm did not last even an hour before hell broke loose.

* * *

"It's quiet, Fuyutsuki…too quiet…"

* * *

A series of explosions shook the complex, flickering the lights and making them go out. As the electro-magnetic effects of the N2 bombs wore off, the lights flickered and became alive again. The NERV headquarters were a chaotic mess. Furniture, people, bodies and computers lay everywhere, littering the floors. Gendo heaved himself off the floor as worthy as he could after being knocked down by the blast and hit the big, red button on the side of his desk. A blaring alarm kicked in and lit the evacuation signs as well as the signs for level one emergency preparations. The desk in Gendo's office showed more of monitors and keyboards than the actual wood the desk was made of. All of the monitors were a fiery red with big, black letters spelling out the four worst words Gendo knew. EMERGENCY! ENEMY UNITS INBOUND! He clicked past the warnings and got up a window showing the status of the Geofront. He cursed as he brought up the video uplink showing the big hole in the surface, leading the SEELE troops down into the Geofront.

* * *

Shinji was shook out of the couch by the blasts and reacted just in time to catch Rei falling from said couch. They got up and ran over to the windows, the smoke rose from the area they knew belonged to the NERV agency. A small red dot popped up on Shinji's watch, and the text beside it that popped up spelled; REPORT – NERV. A similar message popped up on Rei's watch. They ran over to the weapons cabinet and typed in the ten-digit access code. Shinji relaxed a bit as he grabbed his Walther P99 and checked the clip. He looked and saw Rei do a similar check on her Enfield revolver. They grabbed the rest of the armament and rushed out the door, just in time to miss seeing the steel sills lower themselves over the windows.

* * *

Asuka cursed and glared at the smoke in the distance, grabbing her Luger off the bed and snatching the other things as well as her overcoat as she ran out the door. She promised herself; if she survived the near future, she would never return to "that dump" as she referred to Rei's old apartment as.

* * *

Gendo cursed even more as he saw the gash on his hand he had received as he got his big, ornate chair over him. Koso stood next to him and treated his own gash on his upper left arm. This was not received by the chair however, but by a flying glass splinter from a nearby computer he had passed while walking to the office before the attack. Gendo did not treat his wound; he let the blood drip down onto the keyboard closest to him as he stared in vain on the screen showing different sectors of the base being taken over by the SEELE forces. Then he smiled and pushed a bloodied button. The video feed from the recently taken over areas disappeared and was replaced by static. Koso smiled. That trick had been used before, and had worked just as well the previous times. As the video feeds came back online, all that could be seen were dead bodies.

* * *

"There's another one!" A series of gunfiring was heard and the falling of bodies next. Maya, Ritsuko, Makoto and Shigeru crouched under the tables and desks in the Central Operations Room of NERV, dodging bullet after bullet while trying to re-activate the intercom system for where they were.

"They're like cockroaches crossed with ants!"

"What are you talking about?!"

"They're stubborn bastards that come in numbers!"

"Shut up!" Ritsuko clutched her left shoulder in an attempt to stop the blood flow.

"Are you alright, Akagi-sensei?" Maya's voice was barely audible through the gun firing that commenced as soon as a SEELE trooper came in sight.

"I'm fine, lieutenant…" The explosions shook the room and silenced the enemy gunfire effectively. Ritsuko looked at the mess around them. Two scientists lay dead, she was wounded along with Shigeru, and Makoto was the only one having bullets left in the gun. Suddenly, Makoto shouted eagerly.

"It's nobody left down there!" Ritsuko let out a deep breath.

"Finally, a breather…"

* * *

"I see you used the trick I showed you so long ago…" Gendo grinned and pressed the button repeatedly. For every time he pushed the button, static covered the monitors and muffled explosions were heard. Koso smiled as he watched screen after screen show more and more dead bodies. Until the enemy figured the trick out.

* * *

Shinji stared in disbelief at the twenty SEELE troops that stood around him and Rei.how they had been able to pop out seemingly of nowhere, Shinji could just not understand. Neither could he understand why the left sides of the heads of the SEELE soldiers suddenly burst open in a cascade of fire, blood and brain substances. However, an explanation was soon given throughout the intercom system.

"SHINJI!!! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!!!" Shinji and Rei and practically everyone alive in the complex cringed at the exaggeratedly loud sound coming from the battered speakers.

"HOW THE HELL…oh, so that's the volume button, thank you Fuyutsuki. Now then, onto business. Shinji, get to unit 01 and move out. Ayanami, you do the same and follow Shinji's lead, understood? What do you mean they can't answer, Fuyutsuki? Any way, move out. Oh, and by the way. The death of the soldiers were caused by a small trick I…alright, Fuyutsuki, invented. By the time we were trusted by SEELE, we made them some special hands-frees for their communications systems. Inside, there is a surprise, when I push a button, the hands-frees explode!" A series of mad-woman cackling was heard before some kind soul blew up the power station. The last thing heard besides the laughter was the muffled sound of Gendo and Koso fighting over the intercom systems' microphone. Shinji sighed and started off to the Evangelion cages, dragging the shivering Rei behind him. Despite all the fighting she had done, she never was on good terms with seeing blood and injuries, especially not severe head-traumas such as these where the brain spills out on the floors and walls. The following person however, liked the new colour of the walls. Asuka liked to call it "hint of brain."


	12. The Counterattack

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.

* * *

This is the chapter that's sort of a re-telling of some parts of 'End of Evangelion'. If you haven't seen it, go do it. It is the greatest action anime movie ever except for the ever-present what-the-fuckness and depressing elements. If you don't know where to find the movie, ask for advice in a review please. Now, enjoy…

* * *

The cages were a mess, to say it bluntly and save time. Bodies, dead and alive alike, covered the floors, some still opening spontaneous fire at each other, but most lay still. Shinji looked up at the behemoth robot in purple before him. The blood covering its' face seemed to make its' facial expressions twisted into a sort of wry grin, a sort of blood lust shining through the head plates. Rei kept her face pressed to the side of Shinji's chest in order to block out the blood and violence around her. Despite her firm coldness in every situation, she shivered and sobbed whenever there was blood or bodies around her. Asuka didn't bother about either the robots nor covering her eyes, she walked casually around methodically finishing every SEELE soldier off as she saw them. For every new head opening for her gun, her smile widened more and more into a mad grin that seemed eager to taste the blood.

* * *

"Asuka…we'd better get in the Eva's now…" Shinji's voice roused Asuka's sanity and she walked back to them, holstering her pistol which was feeling quite lighter due to the only half-full magazine. Rei was still in the same position as before, only looking up once in a while to get a weak smile and a pat on the head by Shinji that calmed her.

* * *

"Yeah…before all the fun ends. Let's go then!" Asuka broke up in a smile that seemed to go from ear to ear before she dashed off to her Unit 02. Shinji stared confused after her for a few seconds before turning back to look at Rei.

* * *

"Rei…honey…are you okay?" Rei looked up at him, straightened herself up and wiped a few tears away. She nodded quickly with some steel in the eyes. Without another word, she also ran off to her Eva, not looking back and letting the ice blue hair flail behind her. Shinji sighed and turned to Unit 01 when he heard a confused shout. Shinji looked around surprised and caught a glimpse of red hair before something pounced on him, sending him to the floor with the air going out of him.

* * *

"Was ist das?! What the hell is stuck in my Unit?!" Shinji could only quirk a surprised eyebrow as Asuka kept shaking his rather limp head from side to side. Asuka realized that she was rapidly choking him and stood up, pulling him with her and then pushing him towards the red cage.

* * *

"What the hell is that?!" Asuka screamed again in Shinji's face, and he could only look and ask the same question. "It", was big, red and round, like a kids ball. And it stuck out of the red robots' chest without asking permission it seemed. When the looked at it though, two big, black letters protruded clearly. "S2". Asuka looked as surprised as ever. Then she smiled and jumped up and down with glee.

* * *

"Oh, that sweetheart! He shouldn't have!" Shinji looked at her with a grimace saying "are you nuts?" before he sighed and tried to sneak back to his own robot. It succeeded as Asuka was too busy climbing a ladder she found somewhere (Shinji thought sarcastically 'maybe her cleavage' without any reason) and feeling the smoothness of the energy-cable replacer, giggling. As Shinji got into Unit 01, he found out that he had not received an S2 engine, but Rei also had. Now only Shinji had to worry about his own battery capacity. He did so for a few seconds before he smacked himself in the head, remembering that the battery capacity had been expanded. Neither of them needed to think of batteries then, and they were ready to move out. Or so they thought. After waiting three minutes, they realized something. Smartass using the intercom, someone blowing up power plant. Someone blowing up the power plant. That's it, no energy to remove bridges, blockings and activating the elevators. Shinji groaned and slapped himself again. Then he noticed something on the floor. A figure running around, trying to get his attention. He succeeded due to the fact that the person was his father, naked, three large feathers in his ass, and Fuyutsuki with him in the same state. They were dancing as well. When they noticed that they got Shinji's attention, they danced a few more minutes before quietly getting dressed, grabbing a big poster saying "We get U out" Shinji groaned. His father was a mad scientist of a commander, dancing naked with his vice commander under emergencies, and he tried to pull the gates open by hand. After a while, Fuyutsuki got him to realize that all the technicians followed them here for a reason.

* * *

Half an hour later, the bridges and blockings were removed, and the elevators worked on emergency batteries.

"Spanking time!" Asuka shouted, and that was as good as any ready-set-go yelling. They moved out to the now open GeoFront.

* * *

It was a nightmare, tanks, artillery and infantry as well as air force were moving around in the GeoFront, most of them lined up against the walls of the huge cave. At the sight of the giant robots, all of them opened fire at once. Shinji threw himself at Rei, pushing them both behind the pyramid-like building serving as HQ and cover. Asuka however, threw herself head-first into the huge lake. The alarm of gunfire quieted down as there were no visible targets for SEELE to fire at. The pilots sighed a breath of relief. This was soon regretted though, for the moments after, something knocked against the head of the submerged Unit02. A small, cylindrical object floated before its' eyes. A few more joined it. Then they went off. A blinding, white light filled Asuka's monitors as the detonations sent ripples of pain through Asuka and a few cracks appeared in the armour of Unit 02.

* * *

"Asuka!"

"Soryu!" Asuka shook her head, making a few locks conceal her eyes on the camera feed to the other Eva's. Then she brushed them aside. The eyes shone of a madness never seen before, the eyes were filled with a desire to kill, mutilate and destroy. A series of German cursing followed thereafter, the she rose. She rose out of the water like a sort of water demon, the eyes of the Eva flashing dangerously. The artillery barrage resumed as they saw her, but the never counted on what happened next. Asuka grabbed a big battle ship, raised like a shield against the missiles that spread their light across the GeoFront upon detonation. As the ship was deemed unusable, Asuka threw the burning wreck at the vehicles at the beaches, destroying them, thus creating a heat blast triggering the explosives aboard the ship, making it explode as well. Asuka smiled at the warm light and glared dangerously at the tanks, who were spitting their shells at her. She walked towards them slowly.

* * *

"Eva has become a burden again. They will impede on us once more." 

"Poison should be discharged with poison."

* * *

As the wrecking of the remnants of the SEELE army continued, the other robots also joined in, seeming to find great joy in destroying the attackers. After a while, there were no ground units in sight, and Asuka quickly finished off the planes firing at them. 

"Looks like we got all of …" Shinji's voice trailed off as he looked up in the sky. Nine big, white, bird-looking things were descending on the GeoFront. This was not looking good, the three pilots decided. And somewhere in the complex, Gendo shit himself.Q


	13. Torment of Oblivion

The MP Eva units slowly, but determinedly, descended upon the ground of the GeoFront and started folding their wings into their backs. They stood from a crouching position to a standing, revealing a faceless head only equipped with a huge, redlined mouth. The mouths curled upwards in a grin as the pilots examined the weapons the white Evangelion units carried with them. Big, grey and seemingly lethal, the huge swords gleamed ominous in the morning light shining down through the hole which had been Tokyo-3. As the pilots watched the white Evangelion units carefully, they saw nine black airplanes leaving the airspace, each of them numbered one to nine.

"Well…" Shinji began cautiously, "anybody have a strategy to try?" Asuka and Rei both shook their heads on the video feeds from their plugs.

"So…are we just going to beat them?" Asuka smiled sinisterly and nodded, the gleam in her eyes awakening again. Rei simply nodded after contemplating a few seconds. Shinji did not bother to give any signals, as soon as he got the signs from the girls, he charged head on for the unit closest to him. It looked up on him just in time to see the hands of Unit 01 closing around its' head, crushing the skull and letting out the brain matter.

* * *

Three minutes later, the Geofront was a slaughter field. To say it was a battle would be far too underestimating. One second a white Eva was hurled into a building, the next it was a torso seen flying through the air. The pilots let all their eventual frustrations out and went berserk on their foes.

The taste of victory was sweet to the teenagers and they allowed themselves to let their guard down for a second. This proved to be fatal however. With a hollow scream that made everybody's hair stand on edge in fear, the ground shook and the water boiled as the white Eva's stood again, their white bodies specked with grime, dirt, and blood and brain matter. It was horrifying to see the crushed, ought-to-be-dead Eva's stand again and grab their weapons. Shinji swallowed audibly and took a careful step towards them. With a deeper howl, one white unit hurled its' sword at Shinji, who could only extend his AT-field and used it to intercept the sword. Shinji's eyes went wide with fear and amazement as the huge dual sword was transformed into what looked like.

"The Lance of Longinus…" As if the sentence was some sort of a commando, the lance started to break through and pierce the AT-field to plunge forward towards the face of Unit 01.

"Shinji!" He heard Rei's voice call for him, but he could not move. The sight of the closing in lance seemed to be hypnotizing, a sort of preparation for death. All his muscles tensed and relaxed over and over. Then there was only darkness.

* * *

"You idiot, quit daydreaming!" Shinji looked at Asuka's Eva, standing before his own that lay on the ground. She stood before him, protectively with the grey Lance of Longinus in her grasp.

"Shinji, are you alright?" Rei's voice came and roused Shinji from his amazed stare and he replied positively.

"Geez…get a grip…we've gotta fight!" With those words, Asuka lunged forward, embedding the lance into the S2 organ of the Eva that threw it and got rewarded with the Eva shutting down.

"See, that's how you…" Asuka got very wide eyes as she felt the pain. Her eyes wandered down to her stomach, where the two tips of a lance stuck out.

"Asuka!" Shinji cried out as he saw another two tips protrude from her chest. And another two from her shoulder.

"Asuka!" Rei too, cried out with fear and sadness. The three Eva's who had thrown or pushed their Lances seemed to grin at them. But not for long. The smiles went away with the rest of the heads as Shinji and Rei smashed them to the ground.

"Bring it on!" Asuka's voice was weak, as she fought not to faint from the pain. She had fought with a clear 73 sync ratio, and this resulted in immense pain feedback.

* * *

The next thing Shinji remembered was floating high above the ground, Rei's and Asuka's Eva units under each arm. And a red Lance of Longinus hovering just right by his throat. And then all the white MP Eva's flying around them. And then darkness. Again.

* * *

"Ikari…it has begun…"

"Yes…"

"If not you control this by using Rei, you won't see Yui."

"I know, but it's okay. I can only hope that I am alive after the Third Impact to say that I am sorry to my son." Kozo Fuyutsuki looked at his old pupil who sat at the desk. He had matured since the schooldays.

"Yui never liked violence…I am violent…she has seen what I has done and removed herself from me. I won't go to her. She does not deserve me." Gendo Ikari looked at the remnants of his right arm and sighed.

"With age comes wisdom; with death comes clarity of the head."

"True, Fuyutsuki…true…with the blood of three billion people on my hands…Yui will detest me." Kozo Fuyutsuki smiled and put a tired hand on the shoulder of Gendo Ikari. A hand that comforted into the last. Then came the all-ruling darkness of destruction and oblivion.

* * *

AN: I hope this was not complete rubbish, and that some people actually understand why Gendo uses Rei in the real series. It is planned to end here though, I want to thank everybody who has, is and will read this for their support. Without their readers, authors are nought. A special thanks goes out to: Alucard180 for being with me all the time, every chapter, Shrine Keeper of Ayanami Rei for inviting me, you know what to. And there are a lot more people who should have thanks but I think I'd make the file size too huge. Thank You All For Reading My first fanfic ever.

And if anyone should be interested, I might write a sequel to this. If you check again in a few days (or weeks), you might see another story by me, I plan on naming it something along the lines of "Fate of the Lilim." Or something like that. Any suggestions of any kind are greatly appreciated and might be included. Thank You again, and all of you, my readers know who will be thanked. Feel good.

Keep Up The Good Work!


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